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REESE    LIBRARY 

OF   THK 

UNIVERSITY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

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Accessions  No.  /£&.  ^  -  Shelf  No.  _  . 


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ORIENTAL   RELIGIONS. 


By  the  Same  Author. 

ORIENTAL    RELIGIONS,  and  their  Relation    to 
Universal   Religion.  —  INDIA.      8vo.      802  pages. 

$5.00. 

"  Samuel  Johnson's  remarkable  work  is  devoted  wholly  to  the 
religions  and  civilization  of  India ;  is  the  result  of  twenty  years' 
study  and  reflection  by  one  of  the  soundest  scholars  and  most  acute 
thinkers  of  New  England ;  and  must  be  treated  with  all  respect, 
whether  we  consider  its  thoroughness,  its  logical  reasoning,  or  the 
conclusion — unacceptable  to  the  majority,  no  doubt — at  which  it 
arrives."  —  Springfield  Republican. 

"  The  reader  who  is  curious  in  the  history  of  opinions  will  hardly 
find  a  more  instructive  guide  in  the  obscure  labyrinth  into  which  he 
is  tempted  by  the  study  of  Oriental  reasonings  and  fancies.  Mr. 
Johnson  has  thoroughly  mastered  the  subject  of  which  he  treats,  by 
the  thoughtful  researches  of  many  years.''  — New-York  Tribune. 

"  The  comprehensiveness  of  its  scope,  its  careful  summaries  and 
analyses,  make  it  an  addition  to  the  literature  of  theology  that  can- 
not fail  of  attracting  the  attention,  and  provoking  the  criticism,  of 
scholars  ;  while  it  will  not  be  found  either  too  recondite  or  too  ob- 
scure for  the  thoughtful  general  reader."  — Boston  Transcript. 

"  A  book  of  which  every  American  scholar  has  reason  to  be 
proud."  —  T.  W.  Higginson. 

HOUGHTON,  OSGOOD   &   CO, 

Publishers. 


ORIENTAL  RELIGIONS 


AND    THEIR 


RELATION    TO    UNIVERSAL 
RELIGION 


BY 

SAMUEL  JOHNSON 


CHINA 


BOSTON 

HOUGHTON,  OSGOOD   AND   COMPANY 
C.imbnttft:  Cbz  fiturrotte 
1878 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1877,  by 

SAMUEL    JOHNSON, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Cam bridge : 
Press  of  John   Wilson  dr*  Son. 


CONTENTS. 


CHINA. 
I. 

ELEMENTS. 

Page 

I.  THE  CHINESE  MIND  .' 5 

II.  LABOR 65 

III.  SCIENCE 93 

IV.  EXTERNAL  RELATIONS 119 

V.  ETHNIC  TYPE 169 

VI.  RESOURCES    ,                   181 


II. 

STRUCTURES. 

I.  EDUCATION 191 

II.  GOVERNMENT 267 

III.  LANGUAGE 397 

IV.  LITERATURE 437 

V.  HISTORY 471 

VI.  POETRY 511 


III. 

SAGES. 

I.  RATIONALISM    .1 553 

II.  CONFUCIUS 571 

III.  DOCTRINE  OF  CONFUCIUS 599 

IV.  INFLUENCE  OF  CONFUCIUS 625 

V.  MENCIUS 637 


VI  CONTENTS. 


IV. 

BELIEFS. 

I.  FOUNDATIONS.  page 

Introductory 667 

Patriarchalism 670 

The  Ancestral  Shrine 695 

The  Future  Life 708 

Fung-Shui 715 

Divination 718 

Theism 723 

II.  BUDDHISM. 

The  Coming  of  Buddhism .  737 

Development  of  Buddhism 757 

Chinese  Buddhism 800 

III.  MISSIONARY  FAILURES  AND  FRUITS 837 

IV.  TAO-ISM. 

Lao-tse 859 

The  Tao-sse 881 

V.  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  Y-king 907 

Metaphysics 922 

Anthropology 950 


TOPICAL   ANALYSIS. 


CHINA. 

I.     ELEMENTS. 

I.  THE   CHINESE    MIND 5-61 

A  Study  in  Universal  Religion.  General  Distinction  from  the  Hindus. 
Relation  of  Abstract  to  Concrete  in  Chinese  Mind.  As  shown  by 
the  Written  Language.  The  Key  to  well-known  Defects.  Dead 
Levels  and  Comminuted  Ideals.  Pathos  of  Arrested  Growth.  Hu- 
mor. Unprogressive  Habits.  —  "  The  Middle  Way."  Its  Lack  of 
Inspiration.  Its  Universal  Elements.  Its  Application  to  Logical 
Processes.  To  Language.  To  Jurisprudence.  To  Morality  and 
Religion.  —  Scope  of  Chinese  Character  shown  by  the  Diversity  of 
Testimony  concerning  it.  The  Interpretation.  —  Ethical  Qualities. 
Personal  Morals.  Effects  of  Over-population.  Infanticide.  —  So- 
cial Order.  Peaceableness.  Courage.  Endurance.  Self-abandon- 
ment. Suicidal  Propensity.  Defective  Sensibility.  —  Humanities. 
Domestic  Affections  a  Religion.  —  Defect  of  Motive  Power.  Bal- 
anced by  Social  Sympathies.  The  Festivals.  Reactions  on  Re- 
straint. —  Passion  for  Traffic.  Organizing  Power.  Taste  for 
Competition.  Respect  for  Limits  and  Conditions.  Conservatism. 
Nothing  Lost.  Cheerfulness.  Causes  of  Shy  and  Sharp  Practice. 
Nature  of  Chinese  Love  of  Gain.  Simple  and  Thrifty  Habits. 
Summary  of  Traits.  Relation  to  Occidental  Needs. 

II.  LABOR 65-90 

The  Religion  of  the  Chinese  to  be  studied  in  their  Visible  Work. 
Traits  of  the  Muscular  Type  of  Mind.  Chinese  Work-Faculty. 
Variation  from  the  Mongolic  Type.  Agriculture.  Honored  from 
Early  Times.  Love  of  Systematic  Processes.  Nature's  Journey- 
men. Vast  Productive  Capacity.  Labor  exclusively  Human. 
Economies.  Distribution  of  Products.  Horticulture.  ^Esthetic 
Gifts.  Touch.  Mechanical  Dexterity.  Painting  and  Sculpture. 


Vlll  TOPICAL   ANALYSIS. 

Comparison  with  Japanese  Art.  Pettiness  in  Details.  Porcelain. 
Music.  —  Inventive  Ingenuity.  Original  Inventions.  Imperfect 
Development  of  Materials. 

III.  SCIENCE 93-H5 

Diversity  of  Testimony.  Disadvantages  for  Science.  Ideal  Precon- 
ceptions. Clear  Sense  of  Natural  Law.  —  Botany.  Medicine. 
Chemistry.  Astronomy.  Mathematics.  History.  Criticism. 
Chronology.  Geography.  Politics.  Comparative  Results  of  Chi- 
nese Industry.  Philosophy  of  its  Want  of  Progress.  Prospects. 

IV.  EXTERNAL   RELATIONS 119-165 

Ancient  Intercourse  with  China.  Her  Interest  in  Foreign  Countries. 
The  Arab  Traders.  The  Catholic  Missionaries  ;  Marco  Polo  ;  Na- 
vare'te.  Reception  of  Dutch  and  Russians.  Of  Portuguese.  Proofs 
that  the  Chinese  were  not  Exclusive.  Causes  for  excluding  For- 
eigners. Character  of  European  Visitors.  Political  Interference. 
Selfishness  of  Traders.  Chinese  Self-adequacy.  Mutual  Ignorance 
of  Chinese  and  Europeans.  —  Grounds  of  Hostility  to  the  Occident. 
I.  The  Opium  Trade.  Data.  Smugglers'  Indemnity  exacted  by 
England.  The  Chinese  Argument.  The  British  Defence.  The 
East  India  Company's  Argument  for  Gain.  Treaty  of  1842.  Treaty 
of  Tien-tsin.  Christianity  and  Opium.  Protests  in  England.  Later 
Facts.  — II.  The  Cooly  Trade.  Protests  against  it.  —  III.  Treat- 
ment of  Immigrants  in  California.  Industry  a  Stumbling-block  in 
America.  Barbarities  in  a  Republic.  The  Testimony.  The  Work- 
man proves  his  Right  to  Work.  Fear  of  Cheap  Labor.  Openness 
of  Chinese  to  Foreign  Teaching.  In  Commerce,  Art,  and  War. 
In  Medicine.  In  Culture.  Wisdom  of  their  Resistance  to  Sudden 
Changes.  Japanese  Reform. 

V.  ETHNIC   TYPE 169-177 

Fusion  of  Races  in  Chinese  Type.  Its  Quality.  Its  Mongolian  Traits. 
Relations  with  the  Manchus.  With  the  Thibetans.  With  the 
Aboriginal  Tribes.  Hypotheses  of  Origin. 

VI.  RESOURCES 181-188 

The  Land.  Its  Variety.  Climate.  The  Cities.  The  Ports.  The 
Islands.  —  Population.  Its  Pressure  on  the  Land.  Causes  of  its 
Growth.  Resources  of  China. 


TOPICAL   ANALYSIS.  IX 

II.     STRUCTURES. 

I.  EDUCATION 191-264 

Worship  of  Written  Words.  Honors  to  Culture.  "The  Sacred 
Edict."  — Schools.  Educational  Type.  Memorizing.  Mechanical 
Imitation.  Analogies  in  American  System.  Dangers  of  Mechan- 
ism in  Teaching.  The  Chinese  aware  of  these  Dangers.  Respect 
for  the  Moral  Nature.  —The  Text-books.  Christian  and  Tai-ping 
Versions  of  the  "  Trimetrical  Classic."  Confucian  Ethics  of  Study. 
Rites  and  Ceremonies.  Ethics  of  the  "Sacred  Edict."  Their 
Basis  in  Moral  Order.  —  THE  LI-KI.  Its  Philosophy  of  Rites.  Mu- 
tual respect  in  Teacher  and  Pupil.  Distinction  between  Music  and 
Rites.  Chinese  Theory  of  Music.  —  Pedagogic  Formalism.  Re- 
sults of  Patriarchalism.  Recognition  of  Laws  beyond  Private  Will. 
Dangers  of  Over-teaching.  Analogous  Mechanism  in  Western  Cult- 
ure. Scientific  Pedagogy.  Opportunity  of  Mutual  Help  by  Inter- 
course of  East  and  West.  —  The  Competitive  Examinations.  The 
Three  Degrees.  The  Han-lin  Laureates.  Material  of  Study. 
Faculties  brought  into  Exercise.  European  Analogies.  Abuses  of 
the  Competitive  System.  Moral'  Results.  Political  Advantages. 
Higher  Uses.  Education  of  Females. — History  of  the  Chinese 
Politico-educational  System.  A  Question  for  Republics.  The 
Idea  of  Governmental  Duty  towards  Schools.  Antiquity  of  the 
School  System.  Its  Struggles  and  Triumphs.  Significance  of  its 
History.  The  Glory  of  China.  Estimate  of  the  Facts.  Contrast 
with  American  Political  Methods.  Our  Instant  Duty.  The  Com- 
petitive Method  discussed.  "The  Civil-service  Act."  Wherein 
Competitive  Systems  are  inadequate.  The  Deeper  Needs.  Con- 
ditions of  a  good  Civil  Service.  Evils  of  Competition  in  America. 
In  Manners.  In  Schools.  How  far  it  is  Useful.  Reserved  Rights 
of  a  People,  as  to  Political  Choice,  beyond  all  Systems.  Function 
of  the  Free  Personal  Ideal. 

II.  GOVERNMENT 267-393 

The  Chinese  Political  Ideal  defined  and  contrasted.  Intimate  Relation 
to  Nature.  Based  on  the  Family.  The  Imperial  Symbol.  The 
Idea  of  the  State  the  Real  Sovereign.  Its  Symbolism.  Adulation 
in  the  West.  The  Duty  of  being  Led.  Political  Optimism.  The- 
oretic Omnipotence  of  the  Ruler's  Example.  Its  Resemblance  to 
Hebrew  Faith  in  Earthly  Retribution.  Spontaneous  Force  of  Right 
in  Human  Nature.  Chinese  Traditions  on  this  Subject.  Its  Rela- 
tion to  the  Absence  of  very  Ancient  Laws.  The  People  as.a  Child. 


TOPICAL    ANALYSIS. 

Universal  Good  the  Basis  of  Government.  —  Patriarchalism  and 
Universal  Religion.  The  Oldest  Positivists.  Government  of  China 
not  a  Despotism.  Restrictions  on  Imperial  Power.  Responsibility 
to  "Heaven."  To  the  Correlation  of  Rights  and  Duties.  To  Offi- 
cial Censorship.  To  the  Classical  Ideal.  To  the  People.  How 
the  Popular  Will  is  expressed.  Right  of  Rebellion.  Oriental 
"  Autonomy."  Mutuality  between  Rulers  and  People.  Contrasted 
with  Representative  Government.  The  People  as  a  Body  Politic 
in  China.  Equality.  Absence  of  Caste.  Of  Hereditary  Right. 
Slavery.  Not  of  the  Western  Type.  Chinese  Liberty  not  the 
Right  to  do  as  One  Wills.  Local  Liberties.  Village  System.  The 
Clans.  —  Supposed  "  Immobility  "  of  China  an  Error.  Traditions  of 
Progress.  Past  Political  Ideals.  Yao  and  Shun.  Secular  Stages 
of  Growth.  Slow  Evolution  of  the  Patriarchal  System.  Territorial 
Advance.  Real  Value  of  the  Shu-king  Traditions.  The  Earliest 
Books.  The  Ideal  Monarchy.  Concreteness  of  the  Picture.  How 
far  Unhistorical.  The  Hia  and  Shang  Dynasties.  The  First 
Deliverer.  Fall  of  the  Shang.  The  Second  Deliverer.  The  Law- 
giver. The  Tcheou  Regime.  Its  Fall.  —  THE  TCHEOU-LI.  Its 
Date  and  Origin.  Its  Mechanical  Division  of  Land  and  People. 
Village  Arrangements.  Ideal  Constructions.  The  Administration. 
Board  of  Ministers.  Board  of  Works.  "The  Artisans."  Art 
Regulations.  Significance  of  the  Tcheou-li.  —  RELATION  OF  THE 
STATES  TO  THE  EMPIRE.  Early  Union  imperfect.  Development 
of  Unity.  Fall  of  Feudalism.  The  Feudal  Chiefs..  Their  Cove- 
nants. End  of  the  Strife.— THE  TCHUN-TSIEU.  Chi-hwang-ti. 
Later  Changes  of  Organization.  —  LAND  LAWS.  Their  Early 
History.  Demands  of  Mencius  for  Equality.  Effect  of  the 
T'sin  Laws.  Present  Land  Tenures.  —  OLD  PENAL  LAWS. 
Their  Ethical  Tone.  Idea  of  Punishment.  Contradictions  in 
Practice.  —  THE  PENAL  CODE.  Its  Benignities  to  the  Family. 
To  the  Old.  Its  General  Humanity.  Discrimination  of  Guilt. 
The  Courts.  Protective  Supervision.  Good  Laws.  Official  Re- 
sponsibility. Startling  Anomalies,  arising  from  Honor  to  the  Old. 
From  the  Family  Bond.  From  Marital  Authority.  From  Slavery. 
From  Official  Relations.  From  Religion.  Punishment  of  Mon- 
strous Crimes.  Explanation  of  Anomalies  in  Oriental  Codes. 
Comparative  Mildness  of  Chinese  Laws.  The  Rod.  The  Death 
Penalty.  Dark  Side  of  Chinese  Character.  Penal  Mitigations. — 
Reverence  of  Chinese  for  Government.  The  Rule  of  Right  Func- 
tions. Causes  of  Over-officialism.  Ultimate  Reference  to  the 
Public  Good.  By  the  Man-chu  Rulers.  — THE  IMPERIAL  ADMIN- 
ISTRATION. Correspondence  with  Ancient  Regime.  The  Bureaux. 
The  Provinces.  Mandarin  Courts.  Practical  Working  of  the 


TOPICAL   ANALYSIS.  XI 

System.  Comparative  View  of  Chinese  Political  History.  Pre- 
cautions against  Injustice.  Fulfilment  of  Imperial  Duties.  Grana- 
ries. Charge  of  the  Poor.  Defects  in  the  "  Providential "  Form 
of  Government.  Vicarious  Atonement  in  Politics.  Analogies  in 
the  West.  Origin  and  Meaning  of  Vicarious  Atonement. 
The  Spy  System.  Mixed  Functions.  Other  Defects.  —  Causes 
of  the  Permanence  of  Chinese  Institutions.  Their  Motive  Forces. 
I.  Moral  Supremacy.  II.  Industry.  III.  Education.  IV.  Re- 
spect for  the  Family.  V.  Policies.  VI.  Religious  Liberalism. 
Conclusions. 


III.     LANGUAGE 397-433 

Language  not  Revelation  nor  Invention,  but  a  Natural  Growth.  Its 
Psychological  Basis.  Gesture  and  Feature  Language.  Mystery  of 
;i  Beginning.  Continuity  of  its  Evolution.  Theories  of  its  Organic 
Relations.  Primitive  Language  not  Monosyllabic,  but  a  Complex 
of  Sounds.  Comprehensiveness  of  its  Germs.  "Roots"  not  the 
Beginnings  of  Language,  but  a  Product.  Their  Formation  by  Sepa- 
ration and  Fusion.  Doubts  as  to  the  Usual  Division  of  Languages. 
Evolution  of  Speech  a  Matter  of  Race.  Onomatopoeia  not  the 
Prime  Source  of  Words.  —  Supposed  Inorganic  Nature  of  Chinese 
Language.  The  Roots  show  it  is  not  Primitive.  The  Grammar  an 
Organic  System.  Grammatical  Expedients.  How  Ambiguities  are 
Checked.  Uses  of  the  Tones.  Divination  of  Meaning.  Inorganic 
Elements.  Lack  of  Interest  in  Sound.  Causes  of  the  Absence 
of  an  Alphabet.  Multiplication  of  Written  Signs  compared  with 
Fewness  of  Words. — THE  WRITTEN  SIGNS.  Origin  of  the  Art 
of  Writing.  Early  Stages  of  Imitation.  Picture  Signs.  Tran- 
sition to  Phonetic  Signs.  A  Result  of  Individualism.  Combination 
of  Phonetic  with  Picture  Signs.  Transition  to  Alphabet.  Sanscrit 
and  Shemitic  Alphabets.  Continuous  Development  of  Writing. 
Ideographic  Changes.  To  be  studied  in  Chinese  Forms  of  Writing. 
Effect  of  Discovery  of  these  Signs  on  Europeans.  Theories  of  their 
Connections.  Imaginary  Biblical  Types.  —  ^Esthetic  Elements. 
Mechanical  Aids.  Native  Analysis.  Calligraphic  Art.  Poetic 
Symbolism.  Its  Legendary  Origin.  Its  Closeness  to  Nature. 
Attempts  to  reconstruct  Primitive  China  from  the  Signs.  Con- 
straints on  Grammatical  Structure.  —  Effects  of  the  Signs  on  Lit- 
erature. Their  Bearing  on  Chinese  Civilization.  Use  as  Medium 
of  Intercourse  compared  with  Spoken  Languages.  Originality. 
European  Translations.  Deficiencies. 


Xll  TOPICAL   ANALYSIS. 

IV.  LITERATURE 437~46; 

Scope.  Quality.  Significance.  Resources.  Cyclopaedias.  Antholo- 
gies. Extent  of  the  Han  Revival  of  Letters.  Pan-kou's  Report. 
LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  CHINA.  Its  Ethical  Epoch.  Lyrical 
Epoch.  Philosophical  Epoch.  Dramatic  Epoch.  The  Youen 
Dynasty.  Cyclopedic  Epoch.  The  Ming.  Epoch  of  Diffusion. 
Stages  of  Progress.  —  THE  DRAMA.  Its  Productivity.  Structure 
of  Dramas.  Rythmic  Effusions.  Ethical  Purpose.  The  Drama 
a  Form  of  Popular  Self-criticism.  Naive  Combinations.  "  The 
Sorrows  of  Han."  "  The  Heir  in  Old  Age."  Popular  Supersti- 
.  tions  Satirized.  "The  Circle  of  Chalk." —  ROMANCES.  Their 
Special  Art  and  Ethics.  Geniality.  "The  Three  Warring  King- 
doms." "  The  Fortunate  Union."  Honor  to  Woman.  Love  and 
Friendship.  Short  Stories.  Special  Providence.  Types  of  Ideal 
Virtue.  Extreme  Optimism.  Grounds  of  Appeal  to  Hopes  and 
Fears.  —  PROVERBS.  Their  Significance.  Aphorisms.  Of  Practical 
Thrift.  Of  Prudential  Ethics.  Of  Personal  Character.  Of  Reli- 
ance on  Natural  Laws.  Of  Trust.  Of  the  Spirit.  Of  Humanity. 
Miscellaneous  Proverbs.  Man-chu  Sentences. 

V.  HISTORY 471-507 

Ancient  and  Modern  Records  compared.  History  transmits  Qualities 
rather  than  Facts.  Its  Psychological  Value  is  most  Important. 
Imagination  as  Constructive  of  Prehistoric  Times.  The  Chinese 
Rationalistic  even  here.  Soberness  of  the  Great  Chinese  His- 
torians. Of  the  Shu-king.  Of  Later  Writings.  The  Historiogra- 
phers, Sse-ma-thsian,  Sse-ma-kouang,  Ma-touan-lin.  Their  Critical 
Capacity.  —  Peculiar  Form  of  idealizing  Early  Times.  Age  of 
Fo-hi  and  the  First  Rulers.  Close  Relations  with  Nature  and 
Use  in  these  Myths.  Contrasted  with  Attempts  to  harmonize  the 
Bible  and  Chinese  Tradition.  An  Older  Darwinism.  Contrasts  of 
Chinese,  Hebrew,  and  Greek  Legends.  Opening  of  Genuine  Chinese 
History  in  Eighth  Century  B.C.  Earlier  Foundations  not  want- 
ing. Historical  Conscience  of  Chinese. —  THE  SHU-KING.  Criti- 
cal Data.  Basis  in  Ancient  Records.  The  First  Chapter.  Chief 
Value  of  the  Shu  is  Psychological.  An  Ethico-political  Ideal.  Its 
Religion.  Its  Universal  Morality.  —  The  next  Epoch  in  National 

.  Story.  The  Civil  Wars.  Origin  and  Character  of  THE  TCHUN- 
TSIEU.  Charges  against  Confucius.  Was  he  its  Author  ? — How  the 
Chinese  "Make  History."  T'sin  Chi-hwang-ti  as  an  Outgrowth  of 
the  Demands  of  his  Age.  His  Personal  History.  His  Con- 
flict with  the  Confucians  Natural.  His  Function  Transitional. 
Overthrow  of  the  T'si.n.  Slow  Movement  to  Unity.  The 


TOPICAL   ANALYSIS.  Xlll 

Han.  The  Mongols  make  China  a  Nation.  The  Ming.  Administra- 
tion by  Women  in  China.  The  Earlier  Man-chu  Emperors.  Old 
Internal  Antagonisms  continue.  Disastrous  Reigns  of  Tao-kwang 
and  Hien-fung.  Recovery  under  Prince  Kung.  Chinese  Rebellions 
do  not  aim  at  dissolving  the  Empire.  The  Balance  of  Opposites  is 
the  Safety  of  the  State.  Force  of  Race  Qualities  and  its  Practical 
Lesson.  Elements  of  the  Problem  to  be  solved.  Internal  Forces 
that  must  be  relied  on. 

VI.     POETRY 5H-550 

Passion  for  Rhythmic  Expression,  a  Conservative  Element.  Music 
and  Rhythm  in  China.  Rhythmic  Legislation.  Parallelism.  Wide 
Scope  of  Poetic  Treatment.  Facilities  in  the  Language.  Ex- 
tent of  Symbolism.  —  Qualities  of  Chinese  Poetic  Sensibility. 
Good  Counsels  to  Poets.  Veneration  for  Poets.  "Toper  Bards." 
Association  of  Poetry  with  Woman.  "  Flowery  Scrolls."  A 
Prize  Poem.  Sympathies  with  Nature.  Illustrations.  A  Friend 
revisited.  Longings  of  the  Separated.  Humanities  of  Li-thai-pe 
and  Thou-fou.  The  Conscripts.  Praise  of  Solitude.  Transient- 
ness  of  Life.  "  Carpe  Diem."  The  Li-sao.  Songs  of  War  and 
Love.  A  Woman's  Devotion ;  and  a  Man's.  The  Religious  Ele- 
ment.—  THE  SHI-KING.  Probable  Antiquity  of  the  Odes.  The 
Dates  not  settled.  Associated  with  Music.  The  Lost  Rhymes. 
Only  Natural  Effects  expected  from  the  Odes.  Contrasted  with 
other  Ancient  Hymns.  Affinities  with  Egyptian  Records.  With 
the  Hebrew  Books.  Intellectual  Functions  of  the  Shi.  Expansion 
of  its  Meaning  by  Later  Sages.  Absence  of  Ecclesiastical  or  Pre- 
scriptive Character.  Free  Criticism.  Its  Realistic  Record  of  the 
Old  Chinese. — Arrangement  of  the  Odes.  Book  I.  LESSONS 
FROM  THE  STATES.  Spurious  Titles.  Domestic  Odes.  The 
People's  Voice.  Peasant  Song  of  T'sin.  Labor  Songs.  Inmost 
Meaning  of  the  Symbolism.  Ethical  and  Religious  Earnestness. 
Freedom  of  Speech.  —Book  II.  MINOR  ODES  OF  THE  KINGDOM. 
Festal  Odes  for  Family  Reunions.  Country  Life  Celebrated.  The 
Dark  Shadow.  War  Burdens.  Prophetic  Warnings.  Earnest- 
ness and  Courage  of  the  Poets.  Jeremiads.  Feminine  Element.  — 
Book  III.  GREATER  ODES  OF  THE  KINGDOM.  Divine  Honors  to 
Virtuous  Leaders.  Their  Civilizing  Work.  The  Fortunes  of 
Tcheou.  Agricultural  Myth.  Providential  View  of  History.  Dark 
Omens.  The  Good  King  Seuen.  Evil  Reign  of  Yew.  Royal 
Self-admonition.  The  Criticism  of  Rulers.  A  Gospel  of  Civiliza- 
tion.—  Book  IV.  THE  SACRIFICIAL  ODES  OF  TCHEOU.  Re- 
ligious Crown  of  the  Shi-king.  Ancestral  Odes  and  Honors  to  the 
Best.  Peasant  Thanksgivings.  Prayer  of  a  Child  Emperor.  Final 
Ode. 


XIV  TOPICAL   ANALYSIS. 


III.     SAGES. 

I.  RATIONALISM 553~568 

Chinese  "Atheism."  What  the  Charge  signifies.  Meeting  of  the 
Positivist  and  the  Supernaturalist.  Rationalism  of  the  Thinking 
Class.  No  External  God.  The  Human  Faculties  made  the  'Ulti- 
mate Ground  of  Knowledge,  a  Necessary  Result  of  Culture.  Religion 
of  Humanity.  Honors  to  Benefactors.  The  Popular  Superstitions 
of  China  Contrary  to  the  National  Culture.  Their  Relation  to 
Natural  Law.  Rationalistic  Proverbs.  Results  of  Chinese  Anti- 
supernaturalism.  In  Literature.  Free  Criticism  and  Discussion. 
The  Text-books  of  Naturalism.  The  Defect  of  Over-concreteness. 
Relation  to  the  Needs  of  the  Occidental  World.  Influence  on 
Japan. 

II.  CONFUCIUS 571-596 

Data  for  his  Biography.  His  Times  Unsuited  for  Historical  Records. 
Analogy  with  the  First  Christian  Ages.  Similar  Obscurity  in  Lives 
of  all  Founders  of  Religions.  Inferences.  Real  Value  of  the  Con- 
fucian Records.  Ideas,  not  Individuals,  are  the  World's  Saviors. 
Value  of  Personal  Influence.  That  of  Confucius  purely  Human 
and  Natural.  —  His  Life.  His  Sense  of  the  Conditions  of  Wisdom. 
His  Early  Political  Relations.  Official  Life.  Exile  and  Wanderings. 
His  Use  of  Ill-fortune.  His  Withdrawal  to  Literary  Tasks.  Old 
Age.  Pathos  of  his  Sickness  and  Death.  Compared  with  other 
Teachers.  Dignity  of  his  latest  years.  Their  Task.  Tributes  of 
his  Followers.  The  Lun-yu  Picture  of  his  Personal  Habits.  His 
Traits.  Sympathy.  Humor.  Critical  Sense.  Charity.  Fear- 
less Use  of  Opportunity.  Hate  of  Aimlessness  and  Insincerity. 
Good-sense.  Catholicity.  Modesty.  Originality.  Self-respect. 
Spirituality.  Faith  in  Intellectual  Limitations.  Reverence  for  Prin- 
ciples. Tragedy  of  his  Life.  Its  Triumph.  The  Religion  of 
Self-respect.  Affinity  with  Stoic  and  Socratic  Ideas.  Legacy  of  ,' 
his  Latest  Toils. 

III.  DOCTRINE  OF  CONFUCIUS 599-622 

I.  Man's  Relation  to  Himself.  Just  Self-estimates  and  Inward  In- 
tegrity. Ethical  Definitions.  The  Price  of  Virtue.  Spontaneity. 
II.  Relation  to  Others.  The  "Golden  Rule"  in  Positive  and 
Negative  Forms.  Its  Defect  as  Motive  and  Criterion.  Cautionary 
Maxims  of  Confucius.  Return  Injustice  with  Justice.  Aim  at 


TOPICAL    ANALYSIS.  XV 

Balance  of  Character.  The  True  Conditions  of  Labor.  Modifica- 
tion of  Patriarchal  Ethics.  The  Confucian  State  based  on  private 
Virtue.  The  Family  Idea  a  Complex  of  Personal  Rights  and 
Duties.  Duties  >  as  the  Condition  of  Rights.  The  TA-HIO,  or 
GREAT  DOCTRINE.  Unlimited  Powers  of  the  Virtuous  Ruler. 
Imperialism.  Precepts  for  Rulers.  Rights  of  the  People.  Ideal 
of  Statesmanship.  III.  Relation  to  the  Whole.  Confucian 
"  Unity  "  of  Person,  State,  and  World.  Trustworthiness  of  Nat- 
ure. The  Cosmico-Ethical  Laws.  Greek  Analogies.  THE  TAO. 
Meaning  of  the  Term  Ching,  translated  "  Sincerity."  —  Con- 
trast of  Chinese  with  Hindu  Tendencies.  Confucius  absorbed  in 
Patriarchalism.  His  Sense  of  Continuity  in  Growth.  His  Doctrine 
opposed  to  Inertia.  Contrasted  with  the  Idea  of  Catastrophe. 
Scientific  Elements  in  Chinese  Thought.  Effect  of  Prescription  on 
Art,  Science,  and  Religion.  Transcendental  Element  in  Positivism. 
Mind  all-controlling  in  the  Confucian  System.  Religious  Con- 
ceptions. 

IV.     INFLUENCE  OF  CONFUCIUS 625-633 

Special  Prophecy  and  Plan  of  Reformation  always  a  Failure.  Con- 
fucius successful  in  his  Unorganized  Work  only.  His  Function. 
He  forms  the  Literary  Element  into  a  Power.  The  Balance  to 
Imperialism.  Conflict  of  the  Two  Forces.  Triumph  of  Confucius. 
Services  of  the  Literary  Class.  In  Ethics  and  Politics.  Doctrine 
of  National  Continuity.  Form  of  Confucian  Teaching.  No  Ground 
for  Exclusive  Centralism.  "  The  Master  "  is  simply  the  Teacher. 
Evolution  in  Institutions. 


V.     MENCIUS 637-664 

Character  of  the  Mencian  Books.  The  Times  and  the  Man.  Child- 
hood and  Maternal  Teaching.  Unsatisfactory  Relations  with 
Princes.  Strength  of  his  Protest  against  Wrongs.  Sensitive 
Self-respect  a  Part  of  his  Respect  for  his  Function.  Devotion  to 
the  People.  To  Humanity.  Affirmative  Spirit.  A  Genius  for  Prin- 
ciples. Against  Extremists. — Excellence  of  Human  Nature.  This 
Idea  not  Utopian,  but  based  on  the  Laws  of  Culture.  Human 
Freedom.  The  Child-Heart.  "  Human  Nature  "  not  Defined  by 
Crude  Instincts,  but  by  Essential  Relations.  Laws  of  Penalty. — 
Cheerfulness  and  Courage  of  Mencius.  Sources  of  his  Personal 
Force.  Appeal  to  Antiquity.  A  Consistent  Record.  —  Theory  of 
the  Absoluteness  of  Moral  Power.  Its  Grounds.  Ideal  of  Personal 
Character.  Social  Ideal.  Political  Ideal.  Land  and  School  Sys- 


XVI  TOPICAL    ANALYSIS. 

terns.  Military  Affairs.  Labor.  Social  Order.  Right  of  Revolu- 
tion. Government  for  the  People.  Against  Doctrinaires.  Selfish 
System  of  Yang.  Communism  of  Mih.  Universal  Love.  Two 
Leading  Aims  of  the  Chinese  Sages.  Recognition  of  Continuity  in 
Growth.  Reform  through  Constructive  Moral  Forces. 


IV.     BELIEFS. 
I.     FOUNDATIONS 667-733 

INTRODUCTORY    667-670 

Various  Estimates  of  Chinese  Religious  Capacity.  Conditions  of  Ap- 
preciation. Patriarchal  Evolution. 

PATRIARCHALISM 670-695 

Definition  of  Universal  Ideas.  Their  Phases  Guarantee  Progress. 
Antiquity  and  Force  of  the  Family  Bond.  Marriage  not  the  Primi- 
tive Tie.  Ante-patriarchal  Sexual  Relations.  Primitive  Systems 
of  Consanguinity.  Germs  of  a  Higher  Order  in  these  Systems. 
The  Mother  as  Centre  of  the  Group.  Moral  Origin  of  the  Family. 
Low  Beginnings  of  Social  Life  no  Argument  for  Materialism.  Sig- 
nificance of  Marriage  therein.  Exogamy.  As  Instituted  by  Fo-hi. 
Transition  from  Communism  to  Marriage  connected  with  the 
Birth  of  Industry  in  China.  Patriarchal  Institutions  the  Result  of 
Ages  of  Upward  Struggle.  Their  Influence  on  Woman.  Their 
Justification  in  Social  Needs.  Origin  of  Male  Supremacy.  The 
First  Effort  at  organizing  Government  could  only  be  the  "  Patria 
Potestas."  Benignity  of  Patriarchalism  towards  Motherhood. 
Its  "  Patria  Potestas  "  long-lived,  because  expressing  Duties  and 
Needs.  The  Patriarchal  Family  did  not  rest  on  Mere  Power. 
Duties  of  the  Chinese  House-father.  Of  the  Emperor.  Of  the 
Elder  Brother.  Effect  of  the  "  Lex  Naturae."  The  Family  was 
the  Personal  Unit.  Patriarchalism  not  the  Cause,  of  the  Subjection 
of  Woman.  All  Positive  Religions  contain  this  Injustice.  Com- 
pensation to  Woman  in  Chinese  Manners.  Crippling  the  Feet. 
Nature  of  Chinese  Polygamy.  Woman  in  Japan.  Root  of  Patri- 
archalism in  the  Natural  Sentiments.  Their  Great  Development 
in  the  East.  Respect  for  the  Old.  Errors  concerning  Chinese 
Patriarchalism.  It  is  not  a  Theory,  but  a  Civilization.  Not  a 
"Worship  of  Human  Personages."  Not  a  "Deadening  of  the 
Conscience."  Theological  Patriarchalism  of  the  West.  Japanese 
Shinto-ism  and  Early  Chinese  Religion. 


TOPICAL    ANALYSIS.  XV11 

THE  ANCESTRAL  SHRINE 695-708 

Power  of  Filial  Piety  over  the  Idea  of  Death.  P'etichism  as  a  Wor- 
ship of  Life.  Relation  of  Ancestral  Fetichism  to  the  Sense  of 
Immortality.  The  Invisible  Homestead.  Its  Religious  Meaning. 
Turanian  Tomb-builders.  Domestic  Rites  at  the  Grave.  Family 
Reunions  at  the  Shrine.  Its  Importance.  In  the  Shi-king. 
Functions  of  the  Ancestral  Hall.  Christian  Charges  of  Idolatry. 
Nature  of  Chinese  "  Spirit-Intercourse."  Contrasted  with  that  of 
Christendom.  Its  Moral  Realism.  Chinese  Ideas  of  Spirit-pres- 
ence. Relations  to  Form.  THE  KWEI-SHIN.  Ancestral  Rites  not 
mere  Fetichism.  They,  divinize  the  Home.  Their  Uses.  They 
suggest  a  Lack  in  Western  Civilization. 

THE  FUTURE  LIFE 708-715 

Spirits  associated  with  the  Cosmical  Order.  Interest  in  the  Present 
Life  helps  to  Faith  in  Another.  Indefinite  Notions  of  Immortality. 
Why  Art  does  not  seek  Permanence  in  China.  Content'  in  the 
Order  of  Nature  and  its  Laws.  Chinese  Animism.  Its  Practical 
and  Moral  Interest.  Its  unifying  Effect  on  Social  Life.  On  the 
Conception  of  Nature.  Theories  about  "  Shin-worship."  Panthe- 
istic Elements. 

FUNG-SHUI 7l$-7l7 

Nature  and  Origin.  Based  on  Natural  Laws.  Relation  to  Positive 
Science. 

DIVINATION 718-722 

A  Constant  Element  of  Knowledge.  Interest  of  the  Chinese  in  the 
Art.  Contrast  with  its  Use  for  Intolerance  and  Barbarity  in  the 
West.  Magic  as  the  Reverse  Side  of  every  Philosophy  and  Faith. 
The  Fung-shui  of  Higher  Civilizations.  Chinese  Shin  and  Chris- 
tian Satan.  Magic  as  a  Passion  and  Pastime.  Transition  to 
Theism. 

THEISM .     723-733 

Shang-te  an  Intelligent  Providence  in  the  Shi  and  Shu.  Tien  inter- 
changeable with  Shang-te  in  all  Periods.  Proofs  of  Theism.  But 
no  Chinese  Word  for  "the  Bible  God."  Origin  of  the  Identity  of 
Shang-te  and  Tien,  not  in  Materialism;  but  in  Concrete  Habits  of 
Thought.  Supernaturalism  gradually  dropped.  Contrast  with 

b 


XV111  TOPICAL    ANALYSIS. 

Shemitic  and  Christian  Ideals.  Affinities  with  Natural  Science. 
Cosmical  Theism.  Emotional  Tendencies  of  Anthropomorphism. 
Capabilities  of  Cosmical  Theism.  Chinese  Sentiment  as  modified 
by  the  Perception  of  Law.  Its  Ethical  Power  and  Guarantees. 

II.     BUDDHISM 737-833 

COMING  OF  BUDDHISM 737~757 

Apparent  Unfitness  of  Buddhism  for  the  Chinese.  Its  Growth  not  clue 
to  the  "  Negativity  of  Rationalism."  Nor  to  Religious  Indiffer- 
ence. National  Opposition  to  it.  Its  Expansion  not  so  explicable 
as  that  of  Christianity.  Fergusson's  Theory  of  the  Origin  of 
Buddhism  in  Serpent  Worship.  Wonders  effected  by  Buddhism 
in  China.  Its  Prolific  Literature.  —  Explanation  by  Laws  of  Uni- 
versal Religion.  I.  A  Slow-sure  Movement,  with  Secular  Aid. 
II.  Its  Ethical  Side  preached  first.  Points  of  Contact  with 
Chinese  Culture.  The  Sutra  of  Forty-two  Sections.  The  Cate- 
chism of  the  Shamans.  The  Dhammapadam.  "  The  Four  Veri- 
ties." Its  Sympathetic  Use  of  Chinese  Beliefs  and  Terms.  Its 
Speculative  Doctrine  came  later.  Chinese  Affinities  of  the  "  Great 
Vehicle."  III.  Industry  of  Buddhist  Preachers  and  Scholars. 
Monastic  Institutions  favorable  to  the  Faith.  IV.  Sympathies  of 
Buddhism.  Its  Supply  of  Imaginative  Elements.  Reconcilement 
of  Opposites.  Transmigration  and  Spirit  Tablets.  Attractive 
Doctrines  and  Adaptations.  V.  Force  of  Organization.  Non-dis- 
turbance of  Associations.  The  Convent  and  the  Family.  VI.  A 
Force  of  Reaction  against  Confucian  Contempt.  Against  Material 
Interests  and  Toilsome  Routines.  Against  Ethical  Sanctions  from 
the  Present  Life  alone.  Secular  Aid  from  Political  Reactions. 
Restrictions  by  the  State.  VII.  Intrinsic  Virtues.  A  Recent 
Estimate. 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  BUDDHISM 757-800 

The  Problem  of  Buddhist  Expansion.  "  Worship  of  Non-entity.1' 
China  tests  the  Virtues  of  Buddhism.  Bearings  of  Science  on  the 
Question  of  "Real"  and ''Unreal."  Application.  I.  PRIMITIVE  BUD- 
DHISM. Relation  of  Religion  to  the  Mystery  of  Impermanence.  In 
Christianity.  In  Buddhism.  "  The  Four  Verities."  Their  Positive 
Elements.  Moral  Emphasis.  Early  Sutras  of  Similar  Character. 
Good  Sense  and  Breadth.  Humanities.  Circulation  of  Apologues 
and  Tales.  Practical  Services.  Germs  of  Intellectual  Culture. 
Nirvana  not  yet  developed.  Instinct  to  escape  Individual  Conscious- 


TOPICAL    ANALYSIS.  XIX 

ness.  Nirvana  as  positive  Existence  and  Bliss.  In  what  Buddhist 
Reform  consisted.  Nirvana  explained  from  Pantheism.  A  "  Modern 
Buddhist"  on  Immortality.  Other  Elements  of  Early  Buddhism 
wrongly  thought  Negations.  The  Moral  Law  as  Karma.  Ex- 
tracts from  Sutras.  The  Blessing.  The  Departed.  The  Treas- 
ure. The  Holy  Life.  II.  THE  HINAYANA,  or  Second  Stage  of 
Buddhism.  The  Twelve  Nidanas  ;  a  Logical  Chain.  Metaphysical 
Causes  and  Positive  Realities.  Grounds  of  Transmigration.  "  The 
Five  Skandhas"  Similar  Transition  from  Morals  to  Metaphysics 
in  Early  Christianity.  Philosophical  Energy  of  Early  Buddhism. 
The  Hinayana  Schools.  Their  Materials  of  Discussion.  Results 
Affirmative  and  Negative.  Formation  of  Personal  Mythology. 
Realists  and  Idealists.  Earnestness  of  Dialectic  and  Monastic 
Labors.  Missionary  Ardor.  Unity  of  the  Schools  through  Hu- 
manity. III.  THE  MAHAY  ANA,  Doctrine  of  '-the  Void."  Its  Logi- 
cal Development.  Its  Affirmative  Side.  Relation  to  the  Infinite 
and  Eternal.  The  Surangnma  Sutra.  Its  Spirituality.  The  Secret 
of  Wisdom.  Reality  of  Nirvana.  The  Paramita  School.  The 
Prajna  Paramita.  Meaning  of  Absorption.  Later  Mahayana  Schools. 
The  Madhyamika.  The  Yogatcharya.  The  Nepalese  Schools. 
IV.  MYSTICISM.  Fourth  Stage  of  Buddhism.  Recurrence  to  Reli- 
gious Sentiment.  Personal  Worship  of  the  Buddha.  Association 
with  Miracle.  Logical  Reaction  from  Extreme  Abstraction  to 
Thaumaturgy.  Supernaturalism  of  the  Satnadhi.  Mystic  Powers 
of  the  Dkarani.  The  Runes  of  Asia.  The  Logical  Circle  of  Reli- 
gions. The  Tantras.  Miracle  and  Personal  Worship  combined. 
Buddhist  Messiahs.  Worship  of  Motherhood.  Adiprajna.  Vir- 
gin and  Child.  Buddhist  Mythology  as  Product  of  the  Worship  of 
the  Human.  Historical  Interest.  Universal  Affinities.  The  Sol- 
vent of  Asiatic  Civilizations.  A  Religion  of  Brotherhood.  The 
Tsing-tu-wen.  In  Mongolia. 

CHINESE  BUDDHISM 800-833 

Completest  Literary  Expression  of  the  Faith.  Difficulties  of  trans- 
lating from  Sanscrit  into  Chinese.  Extent  of  the  Buddhist  Collec- 
tions in  Chinese.  Signs  of  Earnest  Appreciation.  Even  in 
Metaphysics.  School  of  Chi-kai.  Attractions  for  Chinese  in 
Buddhist  Metaphysics.  Relations  to  Poetry.  Philosophical 
Affinities.  The  Ideal  as  Concrete.  Practical  Affinities.  —  Ethical 
Method  of  the  Buddhist  Scriptures.  Their  Precautions  against 
Monastic  Selfishness.  The  Chinese  second  their  Practical  Ten- 
dencies. Priests  and  Services.  Versions  of  Buddhist  Apologues. 
Their  Humanity  and  Common  Sense.  Their  Spiritual  Perception. 


XX  TOPICAL    ANALYSIS. 

Their  Faith  in  the  Law  of  Love.  —  Popular  Chinese  Buddhism 
belongs  to  the  Fourth  Stage.  Religious  Dependence  on  Persons 
not  centralized  but  diffused.  Contrast  with  the  Shemito-Christian 
Form  of  the  Same.  Subdivision  of  Deity  in  Later  Buddhism. 
Popular  Forms  of  Buddhahood.  Maitreya.  Mandshusri.  Ava- 
lokiteswara.  Kwan-yin,  the  Female  Saviour.  Her  Relations  with 
Avalokiteswara.  Amitabha.  His  Paradise.  Transformation  of 
Nirvana.  Conditions  of  Entrance.  Immortality  with  Amitabha. 
Sensuous  Symbolism.  Descent  into  Hells.  The  Divine  as  Human. 
Disproof  of  Exclusive  Religious  claims.  —  Conclusions  concerning 
Buddhism.  Unselfishness.  Affirmation  of  Law  and  Love.  Ideality 
and  Common  Sense.  Conciliation  of  Freedom  and  Fate.  Demo- 
cratic Views  of  Human  Nature.  Fitness  for  the  Common  Mind. 
Poetic  Capabilities  ;  shown  in  the  "Jatakas"  and  the  Propagation 
of  the  Faith.— Actual  Condition  of  the  Buddhist  Church.  The 
Best  has  become  secularized.  Law  of  Transformation  in  Reli- 
gions. Defects  of  Buddhism.  Its  Priesthood.  The  Superstitions 
similar  to  those  of  other  Faiths.  Magnetism  of  Sympathy  trans- 
forms them.  —  The  Buddhist  Inferno.  Analogy  of  Rites  with  those 
of  Christianity  due  to  General  Causes.  —  Function  of  Science  in 
reconciling  Man  to  the  Conditions  of  Life.  Prophetic  Germs  in 
Buddhism.  In  its  Mythology.  Inscrutable  Substance.  The 
"  Modern  Buddhist's"  Summary.  Assuring  Lessons  from  the  His- 
tory of  Buddhism. 

III.  MISSIONARY   FAILURES  AND    FRUITS     .     .     837-855 

Freedom  of  Proselyting  in  China.  Failure  of  all  Religions  save  Budd- 
hism. Jews.  Mahommedans.  Christians.  I.  Nestorians.  The 
Sin-gan-fu  Tablet.  II.  Roman  Catholics.  Jesuits  and  Dominicans. 
Practical  and  Literary  Zeal  of  the  Jesuits.  Educational  Labors. 
Martyr  Spirit.  Their  "  Me'moires."  "All  Unsuccessful.  III.  Pro- 
testant Missions  a  still  greater  Failure.  Hopes  of  Miraculous 
Conversion  of  the  Chinese.  Effect  of  Christian  Assumptions. 
"  Argumenta  ad  Hominem.1'  Real  Services  of  the  Protestant  Mis- 
sionaries. The  Hospitals.  Scientific  Success  and  Theological 
Failure.  Literary  Labors.  Sum  of  the  Testimony  and  its  Lessons. 

IV.  TAO-ISM 859-904 

LAO-TSE 859-881 

Recapitulation  of  Buddhist  Relations  to  China.  Difference  of  Lao-tse 
from  Buddha.  Not  Destructive,  but  Idealist.  An  Outgrowth  of 
Chinese  Mind  as  well  as  a  Protestant  against  Chinese  Methods. 


TOPICAL   ANALYSIS.  XXI 

His  Isolation  and  Impersonality.  THE  TAO-TE-KING.  Unique  in 
Chinese  Literature.  Doctrines  falsely  ascribed  to  Lao-tse,  and  not 
in  this  Classic.  Its  Characteristics.  Its,  supposed  "Obscurant- 
ism." Its  Practical  Purpose.  Meaning  of  its  "  Non-action."  Of 
its  "  Non-existence."  Its  Originality.  Meaning  of  Tao  as  Law 
and  Intelligence.  As  Right  Way.  The  "Unspeakable."  Its  Im- 
manence, yet  Reserve,  of  Force.  "Hiding  its  Claim."  The  Inward 
Witness.  Summons  to  the  State  to  recognize  Spiritual  Liberties 
and  Laws.  The  Signs  of  Public  Demoralization.  "The  State 
cannot  be  Manufactured."  Lao-tse's  Political  Gospel.  Extracts 
from  the  Tao-te-king.  I.  The  Eternal  Way.  Laws  of  Growth  and 
Good.  Life  in  Tao.  Sovereignty  of  Spiritual  Forces.  II.  Per- 
sonal Character.  The  Law  of  Contraries.  Least  is  Greatest. 
Substance  and  Show.  Strength  in  not  Striving.  Self-restraint. 
Self-reliance.  Respect  for  One's  Work  and  for  One's  Self.  In- 
ward Harmony  and  Rest.  Union  with  Tao.  The  Three  Treasures. 
The  Immortal  Armor.  Sincerity  and  Love.  III.  True  Govern- 
ment. Ruling  through  Humility  and  Service.  Through  Repression 
of  Desires.  Trust  in  Instincts  of  the  People.  Effects  of  Suppress- 
ing Spontaneity.  Against  Conceit  of  Wisdom  and  Virtue.  Sim- 
plicity against  Smartness.  The  State  ruined  by  Over-regulation. 
By  Luxury.  By  War.  Saved  by  Humanity.  A  Model  State. 

THE  TAO-SSE 881-904 

Rise  of  the  Tao-sse.  Use  of  the  Tao-te-king  as  Basis  for  Mythology 
and  Occult  Studies.  Similar  Perversions  in  Other  Religions. 
Universal  Magnetism  of  Spiritual  Genius.  Merits  of  the  Tao-sse 
as  Reformers.  Their  Physical  Studies.  Their  Large  Claims  in 
Religion  and  Letters.  Moral  and  Spiritual  Elements  in  the  Search 

'  for  Occult  Powers.  Its  Relations  to  Progress.  Wide  Sympathies 
of  the  Tao-sse.  Grounds  of  the  Great  Influence  of  the  Tao-te-king. 
Sayings  of  its  Disciples. — The  "Book  of  Eternal  Spirit  and  of 
Eternal  Matter."  — The  Tao  Saints  and  Public  Affairs.  Ch'ang 
Ch'un  and  Tchinggis  Khan.  Popular  Imaginative  Elements  ab- 
sorbed by  the  Tao- Idea.  Points  of  Attachment  to  the  Tao-te-king. 
Significant  Titles  of  Tao-sse  Works.  — The  "  Book  of  Rewards  for 
Good  Acts  done  in  Secret."  —  •'  THE  KAN-ING-PIEN,"  or  Book  of 
Rewards  and  Punishments.  How  Bibles  mingle  the  Wisdom  and 
Foolishness  of  Man.  Police  Management  of  the  Universe  in  Mod- 
ern Religions.  The  Kan-ing-pien  on  Moral  Freedom  and  Immor- 
tality. Sources  of  the  Illusion  that  Virtue  ensures  a  Long  Life. 
Persistence  of  Fixed  Beliefs  against  Experience,  through  Moral 
Associations.  Kan-ing-pien  Theory  of  Ideal  Retribution  on  Earth. 


XX11  TOPICAL    ANALYSIS. 

Plato's  Form  of  the  Same.  Its  Merciful  Side.  Extracts  from  the 
Kan-ing-pie n.  Virtue  in  the  Heart.  In  Outward  Relations.  In 
Private  Life.  Humane  Sentiments.  Against  Bad  Habits.  Against 
Irreligion.  Blessingsof  the  Good. — THE  COMMENTARIES.  Ethical 
Relations  with  the  Future  Life.  With  Cosmical  Phenomena.  Their 
Democratic  Tone.  Official  Position  as  an  Ethical  Sanction.  Spir- 
itual Principles  and  Humane  Precepts.  Present  Tao-sse  Theology, 
the  Fusion  of  Chinese  Elements.  Its  Superstitious  Types  common 
to  all  Religions.  How  treated  by  the  Educated  in  China.  Related 
to  Mongolian  Traits. 

V.     PHILOSOPHY 907-975 

THE  Y-KING 907-922 

Causes  of  its  Preat  Repute.  The  Koua  of  Fo-hi.  Elements  of  the 
Work.  I.  The  Trigrammes.  II.  The  Sentences  of  Wan-wang. 
III.  The  Maxims  of  Tcheou-kung.  VIV.  The  Commentaries. 
Original  Meaning  of  the  Trigrammes  Obscure.  Sentences  have  no 
Apparent  Connection  with  them.  A  Divining  Book  turned  into  a 
Political  Manual.  Relation  to  I^o-hi.  Scientific  and  Philosophical 
Germs  in  A^z/tf-Divination.  Their  Naturalism.  Based  on  Rela- 
tions of  Unity  and  Diversity.  The  Principle  of  Polarity.  Antithesis  of 
Sex.  —  Historical  Significance  of  the  Y-king.  Compared  with  other 
Bibles  of  Divination  as  to  sense  of  Universal  Law.  Practical  Maxims. 
Rise  from  Augury  to  Ethics.  To  Politics.  To  Cosmical  Philosophy. 
This  Evolution  contrasted  with  the  Chaldeo-Babylonian.  Testimony 
of  the  Hi-tse.  The  Virtue  of  Balance.  Man  the  Middle  Point 
between  Heaven  and  Earth.  Ideal  Exposition  of  the  Y-king.  The 
Instinct  of  Rhythm.  Sketch  of  the  Philosophical  Literature  of  China. 
Chu-hi's  Life  and  Function. 

METAPHYSICS 922-949 

Is  there  a  Chinese  Philosophy?  Did  Philosophy  begin  with  the 
Greeks  ?  Function  of  the  Thought  of  Social  Childhood.  Maturer 
Elements  of  Chinese  Experience.  I.  No  Antagonism  of  Philoso- 
phy and  Religion.  Pure  Validity  of  Reason.  No  Strife  between 
Reason  and  Faith.  Object  of  Faith  is  the  Rational  Nature  Itself. 
This  Instinctive  Unity  of  the  Two  Spheres  foreshadows  their 
Synthetic  Union  in  Modern  Free  Thought.  Good  and  Evil  of  their 
Long  Separation.  Morality  not  dependent  on  this  Separation. 
II.  No  Absolute  Distinction  of  Matter  from  Mind.  They  are 
related  as  Manifestation  and  Essence.  Contrast  with  Hebrew 
and  Greek  Ideas.  No  Chinese  Term  for  "  Creation  out  of 


TOPICAL    ANALYSIS.  XX111 

Nothing."  Philosophical  Difficulties  of  that  Idea.  Scientific  Con- 
ception of  Substance.  Use  of  Terms  "  Before  and  After." 
Unity  of  Essence  and  Manifestation  in  Shang-te.  In  the  Tai-ki. 
In  the  Tao.  In  Le,  as  the  Principle  of  Organization.  Different 
Terms  Expressive  of  this  Unity.  It  admits  Distinction  of  Person 
and  Thing. — TCHEOU-TSE'S  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EVOLUTION.  Its 
Conception  of  Highest  Intelligence  as  not  analogous  to  Self-con- 
sciousness. Principles  are  Ultimate.  In  the  Absolute  is  the  Sub- 
stance of  Intelligence.  This  Philosophy  wrongly  supposed  to  be 
Materialism.  Rationality  of  the  Ultimate  Force.  Human  Mind 
the  Product  not  of  the  Lowest  Forms,  but  of  the  Whole.  —  Ethical 
Significance  of  Chinese  Philosophy.  The  World  Interpreted  by 
the  Moral  Nature  of  Man.  Spontaneity  of  Principles.  Goodness 
of  Human  Nature.  Foundations  of  Spiritual  Freedom.  Chinese 
Philosophy  Intuitional.  Transcendental  Elements  in  Evolution- 
ism. Meadows  on  the  Idealism  of  the  Chinese.  They  slip  Specu- 
lative Discussion.  Apparent  Explanation  by  mere  Phrases  common 
to  Evolutionists  in  the  East  and  the  West.  Deficiency  of  both 
Classes  in  Contemplation.  Chinese  Deficient  in  Individual  Self- 
consciousness  Their  Respect  for  the  Balance  and  Level.  Yang 
and  Yin.  Scientific  Value  of  this  Conception.  Causes  of  De- 
fective Individuality.  Sustaining  Elements  of  their  Thought. 

ANTHROPOLOGY 95°~975 

The  Three  Roots  of  Chinese  Philosophy.  Their  Logical  Bond.  A 
••  Fall  of  Man"  inadmissible  therein.  Human  Nature  represents 
the  Order  of  the  World.  It  is  within  the  Primal  Force.  It 
guarantees  the  Balance  of  Natural  Forces.  —  Moral  Evil  recognized 
by  Chinese  Thinkers.  Their  Plaint  of  Degeneracy.  Sketch  of 
their  Controversy  on  Human  Nature.  Substantial  Agreement  as 
to  the  Excellence  of  its  Constitution.  Illustrations.  Chu-hi  on 
Good  and  Evil.  Evil  a  Part  of  Diversity  and  a  Condition  of  Prog- 
ress. Also  a  Lack  of  Limit  and  Proportion.  '"Satan"  unthink- 
able by  the  Chinese.  No  System  has  explained  Evil.  The 
Chinese  Ethical  Balance  as  earnest  and  as  effective  as  any 
other  Solution.  — Optimism  and  Universality.  Meaning  of  "The 
Mean"  as  the  Method  of  Virtue. — Truth  and  Law  their  own 
Sanction.  The  Moral  Nemesis.  Penalty  is  Natural  Consequence. 
The  Life  of  Principles  is  in  Humanity.  An  Ideal  Humanity  the 
Arbiter  of  History.  Virtue  One  with  the  Life  of  the  World.  Power 
to  Transcend  Individual  Being.  Origin  of  Mind.  —  Ideal  Embodied 
in  Rulers.  Contrast  of  this  Ideal  with  Actual  Men.  Belief  in 
Immortality  not  affected  Thereby.  Materialism  Inconsistent  with 


XXIV 


TOPICAL    ANALYSIS. 


Chinese  Conceptions.  Immortality  their  Natural  Result.  Terms 
for  Spiritual  Existence.  Veneration  for  Shin. — Origin  of  Man. 
How  he  is  affected  by  Death.  Conclusions  as  to  Chinese  Ideas  of 
Immortality.  —  SUMMARY  OF  CHU-HI'S  SYSTEM.  His  Cosmogony 
is  Evolution  without  Beginning  or  End,  or  Loss  of  Force.  The 
Inscrutable.  Production  by  Polarity  and  Permutation.  From 
Nebula  to  Heaven  and  Earth.  Scientific  Suggestions.  Yin  and 
Yang  combined  in  All  Things  in  Definite  Proportions.  Man  the 
Bloom  of  the  Elements  and  Heart  of  Nature.  Correlations  of 
Force.  Philosophical  Basis  of  Fung-shui.  Rationalistic  Criticism 
of  Superstitions.  Foreshadowings  of  Modern  Science.  Causes  of 
Non-development  of  these  Germs.  A  too-concrete  Idealism  and 
Absence  of  Scientific  Apparatus.  Promise  of  the  Chinese  Mind. 


CHINESE    DYNASTIC    CHRONOLOGY. 

Mythical. 

i.  The  Three  Hwang-ke. 
2.  The  Five.  —  Fo-hi.    Shin-nung.     Hwang-te.     Yaou.     Shun. 


Historical. 


3.  The  Hia.    .  .  . 

4.  Shang.  .  . 

5.  Tcheou.   . 
T'sin  .  .  . 
How-T'sin 
HAN  .  .  . 
How  Han 
Tsin   .  .  . 
Tung  Tsin 
Sung  .  .  . 
Tse.  .  .  . 
Leang    .  . 
Chin  . 


A.C 


2205-1766. 

I766-II22. 

1122-249. 

249-246. 

246-202. 

2O2-22I.   A.C. 
,       221-265. 

265-317. 

317-420. 

420-479. 

479-502. 

502-557. 

557-589. 


16.  The  Sui 

TANG  .  .  . 
How  Leang  , 
How  Tang  . 
How  Tsin  . 
How  Han  . 
How  Tcheou 
Sung  .... 
Nan-Sung  . 
YOUEN  .  . 
MING  .  .  . 
Ta-Tsing.  . 


A.C.  589-620. 
620-907. 
907-923. 
923-936. 

936-947. 

947-951. 

951-960. 

960-1127. 
1127-1280. 
1280-1368. 
1368-1644. 
1644- 


CHINA. 


ELEMENTS. 


I. 

THE  CHINESE   MIND. 


li  Y 


THE   CHINESE    MIND, 


civilized  nations  of  the  West,  subject  for  ages  to 
mutual  friction  and  physical  intermixture,  afford  very 
inadequate  data  for  studying  the  distinctive  capacities  of 
races.  They  do  not  help  us  to  determine  how  far  t 

J  •  A  study  in 

a  separate  ethnic  growth  can  unfold  the  germs  of  universal 
universal  principles  in  philosophy  and  faith.  But  * 
in  the  Oriental  world  this  opportunity  is  presented  on  a 
magnificent  scale.  The  vast  population  of  China,  so  uni- 
form in  physical  type  that  they  seem  free  from  foreign 
admixture,  isolated  by  the  ocean  and  by  the  loftiest  moun- 
tain barriers  in  the  world,  have  shaped  for  themselves  a 
peculiar  civilization,  whose  inveteracy  proves  it  a  genuine 
outgrowth  of  the  race  and  soil ;  while  its  startling  contrasts 
with  other  Asiatic  forms  render  such  common  aspirations 
as  shall  be  found  to  underlie  this  difference  all  the  more 
impressive  signs  of  Universal  Religion.1 

In  that  -division  of  the  present  work  which  treats  of  the 
Hindus,    I   have   indicated   their   main   difference  General 
from  the  Chinese,  by  calling  the  mental  quality  distinctions 
of  the  one  family  cerebral,  and  that  of  the  other,  Lm"" 
muscular.     There,  we  have  an  imaginative,  meta-  Hindus> 
physical  race,  who  think  away  matter,  and  hate  the  physi- 

1  For  a  better  understanding  of  this  term  as  used  in  the  present  volume,  as  well  as  of  the 
scope  and  purpose  of  the  whole  work,  of  which  the  following  pages  form  a  second  part,  the 
reader  is  referred  to  the  Introductory  chapter  of  the  preceding  volume,  on  India. 


ELEMENTS. 

• 

cal  toil  which  develops  its  uses :  here,  apparently,  a  swarm 
of  plodding  utilitarians,  sternly  adherent  to  things  actual 
and  positive ;  who  insist  that  the  world  is  the  plainest  of 
facts,  and  needs  no  explanation  ;  that  it  is  purely  a  work- 
ing world,  wherein  a  seventh-day  rest  would  be  an  imperti- 
nence,—  a  world  where  every  atom  is  intensely  real  and 
valuable  ;  where  domestic  and  social  uses  stand  for  poetry, 
metaphysics,  and  religion.  As  w*e  pass  from  Indian  to 
Chinese  architecture,  we  find  the  Bubble  —  symbol  of  the 
unreality  of  things  —  giving  way  to  a  pile  of  dwelling- 
houses,  perhaps  tents,  each  provided  with  roof,  piazza,  fini- 
cal pictures  and  bells.  These  pagodas  tell  the  whole  story 
of  Chinese  religion.  It  is  domestic,  tangible,  practical. 
What  a  chasm  we  have  crossed  from  Hindu  Brahmanism 
and  Buddhism  !  There  was  the  Brain,  pure  Thought :  here 
is  the  Muscle,  pure  Labor. 

To  do,  not  to  think  about  doing ;  to  fashion  the  stuff  of 
life,  not  to  contemplate  it ;  and  to  do  and  fashion  after  the 
most  obvious,  commonplace,  realistic,  and  persistent  way,  — 
this  is  what  seems  legibly  stamped  on  those  square  heavy 
features,  so  slightly  modifiable  by  time  or  space :  the 
downward-drawn  eyelid,  the  flattened  profile,  the  unin- 
spired air,  the  somewhat  plump,  muscular,  enduring  phy- 
sique. Contrast  this  Chinese  mould  with  the  clear  bright 
eye  and  rapid  graceful  motion  of  the  Arab ;  with  the 
dreamy  languor,  yet  exquisite  nervous  'susceptibility  of 
the  Aryan  Hindu  ;  with  the  prominent  features,  the  col- 
lected, self-conscious,  and  expectant  bearing  of  the  Teuton 
or  the  Greek.  It  is  the  unchangeable  image  of  the  per- 
sistent mental  type  which  corresponds  to  it,  —  so  lym- 
phatic, so  incurious,  so  fast-bound  in  things  as  they  are  and 
have  been.  The  Chinese  creative  faculty  remains  within 
the  plane  of  certain  organic  habits,  failing  to  rise  from 
the  formalism  of  rules  to  the  freedom  of  the  idea.  Its 
function  is  to  maintain  and  multiply  ;  to  reproduce,  not 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  / 

to  reconstruct.  It  buries  itself  in  its  materials,  instead  of 
going  behind  them.  Hindu  cosmogony  makes  the  world 
issue  from  mystic  thought ;  Manu  forms  the  creatures 
by  devotion.  But  the  Chinese  skips  the  question  of 
origin,  and  says  that  the  world  has  a  self-shaping  force  ; 
or  that  the  first  man  must  have  fashioned  the  world- 
stuff  with  hammer  and  chisel,  himself  and  his  tools  being 
already  a  part  of  it.  Speculation  here  holds  fast  by  the 
actual  and  concrete  ;  takes  the  human  for  the  divine,  and 
positive  visible  work  for  the  best  part  of  the  human. 

China  does  not  grow  metaphysicians  in  tropical  luxuri- 
ance, as  the  plains  of  the  Ganges  do.  It  has  been  hospita- 
ble to  Buddhist  literature,  but  the  higher  speculative  forms 
of  Buddhism  were  not  of  native  origin,  and  have  not  main- 
tained themselves  among  the  people.  The  sublime  ideal- 
ism of  Lao-tse,  instead  of  flowering  out,  as  it  would  have 
done  in  any  Indo-European  race,  into  a  rich  cycle  of  mys- 
tical philosophy, — like  the  Ved£nta  in  India,  or  Sufism  in 
Persia,  —  rapidly  faded  into  low  forms  of  conjuring  with 
spirits,  elements,  and  spells.  The  rationalism  of  Confucius 
and  Mencius  holds  fast  to  the  solid  ground  of  practical 
ethics  and  social  organization  ;  while  its  philosophical  in- 
terpreters, like  Chuhi,  guard  carefully  against  separating 
essence,  even  in  the  idea,  from  material  form.  And  the 
bewildering  jargon  of  the  "  Two  Principles,"  which  circu- 
lates among  the  people  in  a  great  variety  of  shapes  as  a 
substitute  for  philosophy,  usually  winds  itself  up  with  the 
saying,  that  all  this  has  inexpressible  meanings  which  no 
one  since  Confucius  has  been  able  to  conceive.  The  na- 
tional religion  of  China  is  essentially  a  political  institu- 
tion ;  and  we  shall  realize  the  distance  between  the  popular 
Buddhism  and  that  absolute  mental  abstraction  from 
things  visible  and  conceivable,  which  distinguishes  the 
original  faith,  when  we  consider  how  intensely  and  exclu- 
sively the  Chinese  mind  holds  to  the  reality  of  the  phe- 


o  ELEMENTS. 

nomenal  world,  and  the  validity  of  its  familiar  interests, 
sentiments,  and  pursuits. 

It  would  be  quite  wrong  to  infer  from  facts  like  these 
Relation  of  that  we  are  dealing  with  pure  materialists.  Their 
abstract  to  significance  may  be  better  stated  by  saying  that 

concrete  in       •"/•«• 

the  Chinese  the  Chinese  do  not  hold  ideas  apart  from  con- 
crete embodiment,  so  as  to  study  them  in  their 
own  right y  and  in  their  capacity  for  growth.  As  the 
Hindu  could  not  easily  get  away  from  the  abstract  Idea,  so 
the  Chinese  cannot  get  away  from  the  embodied  Form. 
This  is  perfectly  illustrated  in  the  written  characters  of 
their  language.  There  is  an  immediateness  of  relation 
between  idea  and  embodiment,  abstract  and  concrete,  in 
their  mental  constitution,  which  has  not  only  forced  each 
primary  complex  of  experience  directly  into  the  mould  of  a 
single  syllabic  sound,  and  thence  into  the  still  more  con- 
crete shape  of  a  visible  written  image,  but  has  held  it  fast 
bound  on  this  material  plane.  So  that  not  only  has  sound 
failed  to  be  analyzed  into  alphabetic  elements,  but  the  inner 
development  of  the  idea  itself,  arrested  at  the  outset,  has 
remained  unaccomplished,  —  the  mind  being  busied,  not  in 
pursuing  its  lead,  but  in  constant  effort  to  modify  and  per- 
fect its  visible  sign.  The  paucity  of  ideas  in  Chinese  civili- 
zation, the  intellectual  rigidity,  the  comparative  absence  of 
historical  development,  have  long  been  suspected  to  be 
somehow  owing  to  the  too  rapid  crystallization  of  thought 
into  written  and  even  printed  forms.  Spoken  language,  as 
an  intermediate  stage  in  this  process,  has,  in  fact,  re- 
ceived much  less  attention  than  written.  Little  effort  has 
been  made  to  bring  the  dialects  of  the  Middle  Kingdom 
into  a  common  speech,  compared  with  that  expended  on  the 
grand  achievement  of  a  common  script  conveying  the  same 
meaning  to  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  its  population. 
Less  than  five-hundred  sounds  have  been  invented  ;  and 
these  have  been  made  by  very  primitive  artifices  of  tone, 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  9 

position,  and  combination  to  do  service  for  the  forty  or 
fifty  thousand  characters,  which  the  love  of  working  at  this 
concrete  end  of  the  mental  process  has  wrought  out.  The 
language  itself  is  still  a  monosyllabic  heap  of  atoms l 
after  twenty  centuries  of  existence.  As  in  the  lowest 
forms  of  animal  life,  so*  here,  there  is  no  separation  of 
functions  ;  each  word  may  serve  for  all  parts  of  speech  in 
turn,  all  specialization  being  effected  by  external  devices 
only.  The  verb  and  the  noun  are  not  formally  distin- 
guished. How  could  they  be  held  apart,  so  long  as  the 
ideal  and  the  actual  were  not  mentally  separated  ?  The 
fact  standing  there  is  the  only  reality  ;  and. human  action 
can  only  come  to  that,  producing  no  essential  change  in 
things.  Similar  phenomena,  however,  may  be  found  in  the 
languages  of  realistic  races  of  the  highest  culture. 

Ampere,  many  years  ago,  ascribed  the  inflexibility  of 
Chinese  words  to  the  "curious  accident  of  an  ideo-  illustrated 
graphic  writing,  invented  at  a  primitive  epoch  and  J^teen 
always  preserved."  It  was  not,  as  we  have  just  language, 
seen,  a  "  curious  accident,"  but  a  natural  result  of  pre- 
dominant mental  qualities.  These  oldest  forms  were  the 
bare  picturing  of  ideas  by  the  concrete  objects  which  really 
meant  or  symbolically  suggested  them.  When  a  child 
learned  an  idea  by  the  written  language,  it  was  only  as  an 
embodied  fact.  Thus,  obedience  was  represented,  not  by  a 
series  of  letters  conveying  no  visible  image  and  leaving  the 
mind  free  to  hold  fast  the  abstraction,  but  by  two  charac- 
ters which  painted  the  very  act  of  obeying,  —  a  child  at  the 
feet  of  an  old  man ;  comfort,  by  a  woman  under  a  roof ; 
compassion,  by  a  heart  and  blood  ;  fear,  by  two  eyes  placed 
obliquely  and  drawn  together  at  the  corners  ;  death,  by  a 
sepulchral  urn  ;  succession,  by  one  man  behind  another. 
Simpler  forms  are  a  sun  and  a  moon,  for  brightness  ;  for 

1  This  statement  must  not  be  applied  to  its  grammatical  structure,  as  will  hereafter 
appear. 


1O  ELEMENTS. 

darkness,  a  falling  moon  ;  for  old  age,  a  man  leaning  on  a 
staff  ;  for  growth,  a  plant  rising  from  the  ground  ;  for  culti- 
vated land,  a  crossed  square.  These  ideographs  were  sim- 
plified, modified,  and  combined  as  writing  became  a  fine 
art,  until  the  original  forms  are  for  the  most  part  lost ; 
but  the  intricate  labyrinths  of  pencil-strokes  which  have 
supplanted  them  show  that  the  process  has  still  continued 
to  be  essentially  picture-making.  And  although  by  far  the 
largest  portion  of  the  actual  signs  are  phonetic,  their  forms 
are  none  the  less  distinctly  associated  with  the  ideographic 
processes  from  which  they  came,  and  with  artistic  con- 
structions of  which  they  form  a  part.  However  arbitrary 
their  use  in  composition,  they  indicate,  almost  as  strongly 
as  the  earliest  and  rudest  figures,  the  absorption  of  Chinese 
mind  in  concrete  things.  These  remarks  on  the  written 
language  may  serve  to  illustrate  that  central  quality  of  the 
national  type  to  which  our  attention  must  first  be  directed. 
This  incapacity,  if  not  for  grasping  ideas  as  such,  yet 
The  key  to  for  holding  them  in  solution  for  the  tests  of  reason 
nwbi?6  an<^  aspiration, —  this  necessity  of  letting  them  slip 
ity."  down,  at  once  and  in  their  very  rudiments,  into  work- 
ing moulds  that  forbid  their  further  growth,  —  is  the  key  to 
"  Chinese  immobility."  Progress  depends  on  comparing  the 
idea  of  a  thing  as  it  is  with  the  idea  of  what  it  ought  to  be, 
or  of  somewhat  better  than  it  can  ever  be.  For  the  Chinese 
positivist,  what  ought  to  be  has  already  got  perfect  expres- 
sion :  the  idea  had  its  perfect  work  long  ago  ;  and  he  has 
nothing  more  to  do  with  it  but  to  show  how  obviously  it  is 
all  contained  in  some  crude  diagram  traced  with  Nature's 
simplest  straight  and  broken  lines.  Therefore  this  im- 
mense civilization  appears  to  be  in  many  respects  an  ar- 
rested development,  —  an  old  man  still  in  the  cradle ;  and 
the  unconscious  symbolism  of  its  highest  philosophy  cele- 
brates a  founder  who  has  grown  hoary  with  years  in  his 
mother's  womb. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  II 

It  is  the  arrest  of  ideas  by  their  own  earliest  concrete 
expressions,  destined  thenceforward  to  absorb  the  and  child- 
whole  working  power  of  the  mind,  that  explains  ishness- 
this  childish  side  of  an  aged  civilization,  —  the  side  familiar 
hitherto  to  Western  races,  who  have  made  the  utmost 
of  its  odd  contrasts  and  infantile  illusions  ;  apt  indeed  to 
overdraw  the  picture,  as  well  as  to  misinterpret  it. 

The  Chinese  boy  "  never  becomes  a  man."  He  is  under 
nursery  disciplines  from  beardless  youth  to  beardless  old  age. 
The  State  is  but  a  larger  nursery.  Everywhere  maturity  is 
foreclosed,  and  the  passion  for  toys  and  trifles  is  supreme 
at  every  period  of  life.  Gentlemen  in  China  fly  kites,  pitch 
coppers,  cut  pretty  lanterns  in  paper,  and  pay  for  their  mis- 
demeanors on  their  naked  backs.  When  Lord  Amherst's 
embassy  were  at  Peking,  a  crowd  of  yellow-girdled  manda- 
rins kept  close  about  them,  feeling  of  their  dresses,  taking 
liberties  with  their  persons,  making  holes  in  the  paper  win- 
dows of  their  private  apartment ;  and  were  driven  off  at 
last,  at  the  whip's  end,  like  scared  children.1 

During  the  war  with  England,  great  images  with  goggle 
eyes  were  mounted  on  the  walls  to  frighten  the  barbarians. 
On  approaching  a  regiment  drawn  up  in  tiger-colored  gowns, 
the  English  were  surprised  at  seeing  them  fall  on  their 
knees  with  a  dismal  howl :  this  was  a  salutation  of  respect. 
The  travelling  players  make  a  stage  of  bamboo  poles,  and 
go  through  a  drama  without  change  of  scene.  If  a  general 
receives  orders  to  visit  a  distant  province,  he  mounts  a  stick, 
snaps  a  whip,  and  capers  round  the  stage  with  a  bridle  in 
his  hand,  to  the  sound  of  instruments  of  heartrending  qual- 
ity :  then  he  stops  suddenly,  and  tells  you  he  has  arrived. 
Ghosts  call  out  from  under  the  stage  that  they  are  ready ; 
and  men  walk  over  it  with  a  rolling  motion  to  show  that  they 
are  crossing  a  river.  Yet  this  primitive  acting  is  clone  in 
silk  dresses  of  great  splendor  and  very  ancient  patterns.2 

1  Davis,  Sketchts  of  China  (Lond.  i84s\  IV.  p.  90.     »  Williams's  Middle  Kingdom,  II.  86. 


12  ELEMENTS. 

It  is  far  from  true  that  the  intelligence  and  culture  of 
Dead  China  is  cast  in  such  childish  moulds.  Yet  the 
Levels.  repressed  ideal  element  has  been  crystallized  for 
ages  in  rigid  working  forms,  whose  gravitation  has  drawn 
to  dead  levels  of  uniformity  and  routine.  Every  thing 
runs  into  ruts  of  habit,  unchangeable  simply  because  the 
ideal  was  at  the  outset  buried  in  the  actual,  and  cannot 
stand  outside  and  judge  it.  A  population  of  three  hun- 
dred million  souls  firmly  believe  that  the  world  has  always 
gone  on  by  virtue  of  the  same  maxims  and  methods.  In 
all  their  history,  full  as  it  is  of  civil  strifes  and  local 
rebellions,  there  has  been  but  one  real  political  revolution  ; 
and  that  lasted  scarcely  a  century.  Never  were  annals  so 
monotonous,  crowded  as  they  are  with  a  whirling  chaos  of 
names  and  doings  :  and  they  reach  through  thousands  of 
years.  A  roar  of  multitudes,  toiling,  struggling,  working  up 
rude  material  into  innumerable  forms  of  use,  —  yet  to  the 
ear  of  thought  subdued  to  an  endless  ticking  of  the  clock 
or  dropping  of  sands  in  the  glass.  Not  to  the  Hebrew 
preacher,  but  to  the  Chinese  worker,  belongs  the  experience 
that"  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun."  In  this  plane 
of  suppression  there  is  no  irregularity  of  surface,  because 
there  is  no  free  ideal.  Things  are  unmodified,  laid  by  the 
plumb  and  square.  You  may  draw  a  line  horizontally  over 
a  Chinese  city,  at  the  height  of  a  single  story,  with  scarce 
an  interference  save  from  a  flagstaff  or  a  Buddhist  pagoda. 
The  Emperor  Kienlung,  seeing  a  perspective  of  London, 
wondered  if  the  English  territory  was  so  small  that  people 
had  to  pile  the  houses  up  to  the  clouds.  In  the  language, 
every  word  stands  stiff  and  stark  in  monosyllabic  uniform, 
like  a  drilled  private  in  his  trainband  :  no'  initials  to  serve 
as  corporals,  nor  punctuation  for  platoon  divisions.  Pict- 
ures are  without  perspective  ;  and,  if  you  ask  why  the 
human  face  is  drawn  without  shadows,  you  are  answered 
that  there  is  no  reason  why  one  side  should  be  of  different 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  %       13 

color  from  the  other.  History  has  the  same  construction  : 
the  effects  of  distance  are  wanting,  its  contrast  of  changing 
atmosphere,  its  differences  of  quality  and  relief  ;  the  earliest 
fact  is  outlined  as  distinctly  as  the  latest ;  and  both  are  of 
one  value,  because  presenting  the  same  motives,  traits,  and 
aims  in  the  same  way.  The  perception  of  emphasis  seems 
wanting.  This  people  lay  up  the  old  boots  of  a  retired 
officer  in  their  archives  as  carefully  as  they  would  build  him 
a  memorial  gateway. 

A  plodding,  matter-of-fact  temperament,  without  salient 
choice  or  special  enthusiasm,  makes  the  Chinese  Comminu. 
push  all  work  into  infinitesimal  details;  just  as  the  ted  ideals, 
opposite  spirit  impelled  the  Hindus  towards  abstract  unity 
in  all  the  products  of  their  dreaming  brain.  In  this  amaz- 
ing minuteness  of  elaboration  we  see  that  the  ideal  element 
in  their  nature  is  not  absent,  but  absorbed  in  positive  and 
physical  work-impulses.  This  Pegasus  loves  his  harness, 
and  grinds  away  at  his  mill  with  all  the  perfection  possible 
without  freedom.  Out  of  this  labor  come  exquisitely  deli- 
cate manipulations  ;  civil  and  political  structures  of  be- 
wildering complexity  ;  a  system  of  written  signs,  in  number 
and  intricacy  almost  beyond  conception  ;  a  network  of 
etiquette  and  secular  ceremony  surpassing  in  fineness  any 
ritual  elsewhere  devised  for  the  purposes  of  religion.  The 
Chinese  ideal  is  in  a  state  of  comminution.  We  cannot 
wonder  at  the  pulverization  to  which  the  art  of  compliment 
has  been  reduced  by  this  mincing  process  at  work  through 
so  many  ages.  Its  ingenuity  is  exercised  in  avoiding  the 
use  of  plain  personal  pronouns,  and  substituting  polite  or 
self-depreciatory  adjectives.  As  a  branch  of  the  ceremonial- 
ism which  makes  so  important  a  part  of  Chinese  life,  these 
fine-spun  courtesies  serve  to  mark  what  grotesque  transfor- 
mations may  befall  the  higher  elements  of  character,  when 
absorbed  by  an  intense  interest  in  concrete  details.  We 
cannot  help  discerning  the  traces  of  benevolence  and  even 


14  ELEMENTS. 

humor  limping  about  with  clipped  wings,  where  people  say 
"little  dog"  for  one's  own  son,  and  "contemptible  village" 
for  one's  native  place  ;  while  they  have  invented  "  your  illus- 
trious house"  as  an  euphuism  for  another's  wife,  and  even 
"  your  respectable  disease  "  for  his  ill  health, —  phrases  doubt- 
less much  transformed  in  spirit  by  an  English  garb.  What 
ages  of  mutual  deference  are  condensed  into  the  flattering 
address  on  a  visiting  card,  "  Your  stupid  younger  brother 
salutes  you  with  bowed  head  ;"  or  into  the  host's  obeisance  to 
his  caller,  "  How  shall  I  presume  to  receive  the  trouble  you 
give  your  honorable  feet  "  !  From  the  oldest  recorded  times 
the  duties  of  children  to  parents  have  been  mechanized  with 
a  minuteness  of  prescription  that  would  turn  a  less  prosaic 
race  into  sheer  hypocrites  in  the  closest  relations  of  life.1 
In  the  Chinese,  it  seems  but  a  sincere  expression  of  the 
patriarchalism  that  sways  every  fibre  of  their  being,  and 
works  with  a  kind  of  spontaneity  at  the  production  of  these 
swarming  human  bodies,  not  more  real  and  solid  than  they 
are  loyal,  age  after  age,  to  their  unvarying  type.  And  no 
mechanism  can  hide  its  genuine  filial  piety  ;  its  full  flow  of 
reverence  and  tender  devotion  neutralizing  the  rigidity  of 
these  infinitesimal  rules,  though  it  does  not  quite  melt  them 
in  fervent  heat.  "  They  say  but  little,"  observes  an  old 
traveller  of  the  Chinese  :  "  their  compliments  are  in  form  ; 
one  knows  what  he  must  say,  and  the  other  how  he  must 
answer :  they  never  beat  their  brains  like  us,  to  find  out 
new  compliments  and  fine  phrases.  They  never  overheat 
themselves  :  they  are  like  statues  in  a  theatre,  they  have  so 
little  of  discourse  and  so  much  of  gravity."  2  Is  this  as  likely 
to  make  hypocrites  as  the  other  style  with  which  they  are 
compared?  Baron  Hubner  admired  the  "chin-chin"  when 
he  saw  it  performed  by  the  natives,  and  recommended  its  use 

1  Yet  it  is  not  two  hundred  years  since  profound  obeisances  between  persons  of  the  same 
social  rank  were  a  part  of  civility  in  Europe,  and  children  were  taught  all  the  outward  forms  of 
homage  to  their  parents. 

s  Pe"re  Lecomte  (lyth  century). 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  I  5 

in  the  West  as  an  antidote  to  the  excessive  familiarity  of 
manners,  borrowed  from  American  life. 

The  utter  sincerity  of  this  worship  of  petty  ceremonial 
by  a  people  who  have  so  faithfully  used  their  work-  ^J^dof 
ing  power  to  build  up  a  vast  industrial  civilization,  ideals, 
nowise  wanting  in  the  amenities  of  life,  has  certainly  its 
pathetic  side.  How  completely  it  absorbs  the  religious 
sentiment  is  shown  by  the  simple  amazement  into  which 
they  are  thrown  by  European  irreverence  towards  their 
imperial  fetich.  Lord  Amherst's  embassy  refused  to 
"kotow"  before  the  sacred  curtain,  but  consented  as  a  com- 
promise to  bow  thrice.  Soon  afterwards,  to  read  the 
Celestials  a  lesson,  they  unveiled  portraits  of  the  British 
sovereigns,  and  made  similar  obeisance  to  them.  "  Where- 
at," we  are  told,  "  the  imperial  deputy  was  thunderstruck, 
and  could  scarcely  recover  himself."  No  wonder,  since 
every  loyalty  of  his  nature  was  outraged  !  The  indignation 
of  the  English  embassy  of  1793,  at  rinding  themselves  es- 
corted to  Peking  under  banners  announcing  them  to  all 
China  as  bearers  of  tribute  to  the  Emperor,  hardly  allowed 
them  to  perceive  that  what  seemed  intended  as  humiliation 
was,  in  fact,  the  naive  symbol  of  a  profound  national  convic- 
tion;—  inability  to  conceive  of  any  other  relations  between 
the  "  Son  of 'Heaven  "  and  foreign  States  being  as  positive 
a  limit  for  Chinese  vision  as  the  institutions  and  traditions 
of  Christianity  are  for  that  of  the  majority  of  Englishmen. 
It  is  as  possible  for  the  religious  ideal  to  become  arrested 
in  some  concrete  finality  at  the  later  stage  of  its  growth  as 
at  an  earlier  one. 

The  pathos  of  this  drudgery  of  the  higher  faculties  in 
organizing  the  ideas  of  their  own   infancy  is   ex- 

i     .  .  .  .  Humor. 

pressed  in  a  timeworn,  serious,  impassive  air,  as 
if  making  solemn  earnest   of   minute  and  trivial   things. 
Hence,  probably,  the  prevailing  impression  of  a  defective 
sense  of  humor,  and  even  of  the  ridiculous  ;  so  that  most 


1 6  ELEMENTS. 

translators  have  thought  themselves  justified  in  making 
an  intelligent  people  write  and  speak  in  a  persiflage, 
wholly  opposed  to  the  compact  and  forcible  genius  of  their 
language.  A  closer  study  has  laid  most  of  this  absurd 
inflation  at  the  door  of  the  ingenious  translator.  The 
Chinese  have  really  a  very  quick  sense  of  the  ridiculous, 
though  its  associations  belong  to  the  experience  of  an 
antiquated  childhood,  as  strange  to  us  as  the  language  of 
tones  entirely  separated  from  feeling,  which  they  have 
invented  to  aid  the  poverty  of  their  vocabulary.  They 
are  singularly  light-hearted,  passionately  fond  of  comedy, 
travesty,  and  banter  ;  and  they  have  brought  political 
lampooning  to  a  fine  art.  Their  aged  and  serious  ex- 
pression does  not  prove  absence  of  the  play-impulse,  but 
shows  the  repressive  forces  that  have,  as  it  were,  crystal- 
lized it. 

The  facts  now  indicated  are  very  far  from  inclining  me 
False  and  to  believe  with  Burnouf,  that  "  the  organ  of  abstract 
true  grounds  notions  is  wanting  to  the  Chinese  brain  ;"  or  with 
gressive  Bunsen,  that  "  they  wholly  lack  the  idea  of  con- 
habits,  scious  mentality,"  if  I  understand  his  expression. 
Abstract  and  concrete  tendencies  coexist  in  their  mental 
habit,  but  in  too  close  combination  for  freedom  of  play. 
Meadows  —  one  of  the  best  observers  of  their  Character  — 
even  insists  with  much  force,  in  opposition  to  the  general 
belief,  that  it  is  not  utilitarianism,  but  intense  ideality, 
that  most  distinguishes  this  people.  Certainly,  their  theory 
that  government  belongs  to  the  fittest  and  best,  their  doc- 
trine of  the  excellence  of  human  nature,  and  the  fulness 
of  faith  with  which  they  point  to  their  whole  history  for 
four  thousand  years  as  justification  for  these  beliefs,  —  indi- 
cate the  possession  of  this  quality  in  a  remarkable  degree. 
And  we  have  only  to  remember  the  unchangeable  moulds  to 
which  its  manifestation  has  been  bound,  to  recognize  that 
the  true  statement  of  the  relation  of  the  abstract  to  the 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  \J 

concrete  in  Chinese  mind  is  not  that  the  former  is  absent, 
but  that  it  is  inseparable  from  some  fixed  actual  embodi- 
ment ;  that  this  conjunction,  being  organic,  took  place  at 
an  early  stage  in  the  growth  of  the  ideal,  or  rather  was 
one  of  its  first  conditions,  and  from  thenceforth  deter- 
mined its  objects  and  methods  ;  and  that  the  result  of  this 
chronic  inaptness  at  lifting  thought  out  of  phenomena 
into  free  speculation  is  to  deprive  even  the  highest  in- 
stincts of  their  proper  power  to  criticise  their  own  prod- 
ucts, so  as  to  reconstruct  them  from  new  standpoints  of 
progress. 

Mr.  Fortune  tells  us  that  in  many  districts  of  China  the 
art  of  ploughing  consists  in  turning  over  a  layer  of  wet 
mud  only  six  or  eight  inches  deep,  which  rests  on  a  solid 
floor  of  hard,  stiff  clay.  The  share  never  goes  deeper  than 
this  mud,  so  that  the  ploughman  and  his  bullock  find  their 
solid  footing  just  below  the  surface.  The  ideal  element  in 
Chinese  mind  so  loves  a  solid  footing  close  at  hand,  that 
it  plods  away  age  after  age  at  a  thin  surface  deposit,  and 
leaves  the  hard  pan  undisturbed. 

What  can  come  of  such  constant  experience  of  limita- 
tion both  in  ideal  and  actual  relations,  but  failure  "The 
to  recognize  the  infinite  and  absolute,  —  a  perpetual  ^MiddhT 
schooling  in  moderation  and  repression,  and  com-  Path." 
promise  between  extremes  ?  This  is  that  password  to 
Chinese  wisdom,  which  meets  us  everywhere  in  philosophy, 
politics,  manners,  literature,  faith,  —  "the  Middle  Path; 
the  Mean."  In  all  things,  the  ideal  has  one  meaning :  it 
is  balance  and  harmony  of  differing  elements,  the  not-too- 
much  of  either.  Hence,  the  "  horde  of  petty  maxims," 
of  minutely  measured  virtues,  antithetically  set  and  squared 
in  pedagogic  formulas,  that  make  up  the  educational  pro- 
gramme ;  never  to  be  seized  with  freedom  or  enthusiasm, 
but  followed  as  perfect  prescription  for  securing  the  bliss 
of  equilibration  and  level  in  the  elements  of  life.  The  polit- 


1 8  ELEMENTS. 

ical  recipe  is  "  tranquillization,"  —  a  term  for  governmental 
duty  to  the  people.  All  functions,  from  the  courier  who 
runs  with  despatches  to  the  emperor  who  sits  in  the  repose 
of  divine  authority,  are  beset  with  regulation  and  restraint 
at  every  step.  Sovereignty  resides  not  in  the  free  concep- 
tion of  justice,  not  in  any  personal  will  or  public  purpose, 
but  in  the  prescribed  repression  of  every  special  tendency 
in  deference  to  its  counterbalancing  one  ;  and  to  this  bal- 
ance of  forces,  believed  to  be  actually  organized  in  institu- 
tions, emperor  and  subject  are  alike  responsible.  The  aim 
and  end  of  society  are,  therefore,  not  progress,  but  "pro- 
priety;  "  and  this  term,  descriptive  of  the  mutual  obeisance 
to  which  the  life  of  all  human  aspirations  is  reduced, 
corresponds  in  Chinese  usage  to  that  of  the  word  "  in- 
spiration "  in  races  whose  ideal  is  free  motive-power  and 
enthusiastic  choice. 

Hence  the  lack  of  grandeur  and  even  of  elevation  in 
most  products  of  the  spiritual  soil.  Even  Buddhism 
Absence  gradually  loses  its  ardor,  and  fritters  away  its 
ofinspira-  self-abandonment  in  petty  forms  and  superstitions. 
And  the  mystical  philosophy  of  the  Tao,  so  far 
from  reaching  enthusiasm,  deals  to  a  large  extent  in  para- 
doxes of  contrast  and  negations  of  extremes,  which  end  in 
a  quietistic  self-repression,  depreciative  of  special  aims. 
It  hangs  between  the  contradictory  theses,  that,  on  the  one 
hand,  only  renunciation  of  the  world  can  accomplish  its 
ideal  of  seeing  the  invisible  and  doing  the  impossible  ;  and, 
on  the  other,  that  these  very  powers  depend  on  arts  of 
manipulating  the  visible  phenomena  of  Nature,  and  sub- 
jecting them  to  human  control. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  the  intermediate  position  of 
China  between  Europe  and  Asia  explains  this  tempera- 
ment of  compromise,  this  cool,  uninspired  movement  of 
mind  in  middle  paths.  The  physical  type  of  the  race  how- 
ever, as  well  as  its  history  from  very  early  times,  shows 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  IQ 

that  the  peculiarity  is  no  mere  result  of  geographical 
relation  to  other  races.  We  shall  see,  too,  that  it  has  its 
analogues  in  certain  tendencies  and  special  stages  of  other 
civilizations,  which  cannot  be  so  explained  ;  and  that  these 
are  proofs  of  its  origin  in  universal  laws  of  human  nature. 
But,  however  explained,  it  stands  before  us  as  the  first 
impressive  feature  of  Chinese  character,  and  as  not  without 
its  attractive  aspects. 

There  is  a  fine  instinct  of  justice  in  its  broad  recognition 
of  differing  sides  and  tendencies,  as  elements  to   _ 

Its  Uni- 

be  harmonized  in  due  proportion  and  balanced  versaiEie- 
activity.  Even  on  the  concrete  plane  to  which  it  n 
is  so  closely  confined,  we  note  with  astonishment  the 
extent  to  which  the  individual  represents  the  complex  of 
public  interests,  the  organization  of  the  State.  This  mar- 
vellous social  builder  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  any  life 
apart  from  the  carefully  balanced  and  regulated  whole. 
'Tis  a  polypidom  of  toiling  atoms,  yet  a  structure  of  intel- 
ligent adjustments  and  adaptations  for  all  organic  pro- 
clivities. Here  every  thing  has  its  ideal,  though  not  as 
looked  at  in  itself  or  its  own  right.  Individual,  Family, 
Property,  Commonweal,  Authority  in  Letters  or  in  Re- 
ligion, are  a  series  of  middle  terms,  deduced  from  a  variety 
of  optimist  extremes,  brought  into  mutual  defer-  itsappiu 
ence  and  restraint.  The  logical  process  of  the  ^^ 
Chinese  is  not  induction  nor  deduction,  but  the  processes, 
movement  of  this  love  of  the  Middle  Term,  systematically 
brought  to  its  simplest  form  as  the  mutual  interaction  of 
two  contrary  principles.  This  is  the  normal  track  of 
Chinese  reason.  Its  physical,  mental,  social,  political  sci- 
ence,—  its  ethics,  literature,  religion,  —  turn  upon  the  con- 
stant formulas  of  the  Yin  and  Yang,  as  all-pervading  oppo- 
sites,  by  whose  interfusion  and  mutual  compromise  all 
things  have  harmony  and  health.  Every  thing  illustrates 
this  necessity  of  the  national  mind  to  move  in  the  balance, 


20  ELEMENTS. 

or  centre  of  indifference,  of  contrary  forces.  The  combina- 
Toiau-  tion  °f  opposites  is  a  common  device  of  the  lan- 
guage, guage  for  expressing  genus,  quantity,  and  quality. 
Thus,  far-near-ness  is  distance ;  light-heavy-ness,  weight  ; 
great-small-ness,  size;  and  long-short-ness,  length.  For 
designating  succession,  it  has  before-after-ness ;  for  rate 
of  movement,  it  says  leisure-haste ;  for  number,  many- 
few  ;  for  brother,  the  older-younger ;  for  animal  genus 
the  united  names  of  the  male  and  female ;  and  for  existence 
it  makes  the  really  philosophical  combination  of  "being 
and  nought."  Meadows,  from  whom  some  of  these  instances 
are  taken,1  calls  attention  to  their  conscientious  accuracy 
as  compared  with  our  corresponding  terms,  which  recog- 
nize only  one  side  of  the  relation.  The  anomalies  of  the 
TO  juris-  Penal  Code  are  explicable  only  as  the  wavering, 
prudence.  now  to  one  gj^  an(j  now  ^Q  ^Q  other,  of  a  line 

drawn  half-way  between  opposite  tendencies  ;  and  the  con- 
stant coupling  of  commutation  with  penalty  betrays  one 
pervading  spirit  of  compromise  "  between  severity  in  sen- 
tence and  mildness  in  execution."  The  peculiar  conjunc- 
Tochar-  tion  of  qualities  observable  in  Chinese  character, 
acter.  —  of  cruejty  with  gentleness,  of  peacefulness  with 
irritability,  of  profound  loyalty  with  incessant  discontent 
and  revolt,  of  extreme  dislike  to  bloodshed  with  utter 
unconcern  at  the  torture  or  decapitation  of  hundr£ds  of 
persons  at  once,  of  strong  love  of  life  with  equally  strong 
propensity  to  suicide  under  circumstances  of  discourage- 
ment,—  all  point  to  the  same  constitutional  proneness  to 
hover  between  two  attractions,  instead  of  yielding  to  either 
alone.  As  the  Hindu  dissolved  contraries  in  unity,  so  the 
Chinese  asserts  them  in  his  Middle  Path,  which  never 
escapes  dualism.2 

What  then  do  we  naturally  find  to  be  his  religion  ?    Not 

1  The  Chinese  and  their  Rebellions,  p.  380;  Schott,  Chin.  Sprachl.,  p.  14. 
1  Philosophy,  however,  it  will  be  seen,  knows  how  to  go  behind  it. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  21 

personal  experience  of  relation  to  the  infinite  and  absolute, 
so  much  as  a  body  of  common  interests,  averaged, 

J  Io  moral- 

conciliated,  and  expressed  in  domestic  and  political  uy  and  re- 
institutions  ;  in  which  the  antithesis  of  heaven  and  llglon' 
earth  reappears  as  that  of  the  governing  and  the  governed, 
and  the  active  and  passive  principles — Yang  and  Yin  —  are 
represented  by  teacher  and  taught,  by  parent  and  child,  by 
older  and  younger  brother,  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  by  man 
and  woman.  The  adjustment  of  these  relations,  the  pres- 
ervation of  that  harmony  of  the  universe  which  depends 
on  their  mutual  fidelity  and  proportional  work,  is  the  pur- 
pose of  religion.  It  is  thus  an  affair  of  the  State ;  not  as 
religious  master,  but  as  religious  representative,  —  the  de- 
positary of  worship  for  the  people,  as  its  organized  Middle 
Term  between  heaven  -and  earth.  And  as  the  Emperor 
officially  performs  the  national  homage  to  Shangte,  and  to 
the  superior  guardian  deities  as  under  him,  so  the  great 
local  magistrates  throughout  the  empire  pay  to  the  inferior 
gods  their  iesser  dues.  Meanwhile  the  popular  religious 
sentiment,  by  no  means  resting  in  this  final  product  of 
vicarious  and  mediatorial  religion,  is  absorbed  in  the  closer 
intimacies  of  the  service  of  ancestors  and  of  the  forces  of 
Nature,  or  Fung-shui.  And  these  again  follow  the  regulative 
ideal,  moral  and  spiritual,  in  its  inevitable  middle  ways. 
The  burden  of  the  Classics  is  the  sacred  and  invariable 
"  Mean."  "  Be  discriminating,"  says  the  Shuking,  "  and 
hold  fast  the  Mean  ;  for  the  mind  of  man  is  restless  and 
prone  to  err."  l  "  In  punishment,  settle  cases  with  compas- 
sion and  reverence  ;  hit  the  proper  mean."  2  The  text  of 
the  Yking  opens  with  announcing  four  different  principles, 
whose  combination  constitutes  virtue,  through  mutual  lim- 
itation and  mediation,  upon  the  basis  that  each  shall  have 
such  culture  as  the  interests  of  the  others  allow.3  "  Per- 

1  Shuking,  II.  ii.  15  (Legge's  Transl.).  »  Ibid.,  V.  xxvii.  20. 

3  Mohl's  Yking,  I.  vi,  and  Piper's  exposition  of  the  meaning  of  /4  Zeitschr.  d.  Deutsch. 
Morg.  Gesellsck.  III.  290. 


ELEMENTS. 

feet,"  says  the  Chung-Yung,  "  is  the  virtue  of  the  Mean ; 
rare  its  practice  :  the  knowing  go  beyond  it ;  the  foolish  do 
not  reach  it.  Equilibrium  is  the  great  root  of  human  action  ; 
and  harmony  the  universal  path  that  human  feelings  should 
pursue.  Then  heaven  and  earth  are  in  happy  order,  and 
all  things  will  prosper."  l  "  Shun,"  says  Confucius,  "  took 
hold  of  the  two  extremes  in  men  ;  determined  the  Mean, 
and  employed  it  in  his  government  of  the  people.  It  was 
by  this  that  he  was  Shun."  2  "  To  go  beyond  is  as  wrong 
as  to  fall  short."  3  "  The  reason  I  hate  holding  to  one  point 
alone,"  says  Mencius,  "is  the  harm  it  does  to  principle. 
Taking  up  one  point,  it  disregards  a  hundred  others." 4 
"  When  the  sages  had  used  the  vigor  of  their  eyes,  they 
called  in  to  their  aid  the  compass,  the  square,  the  level, 
and  the  line ;  and  the  use  of  the  instruments  is  inexhausti- 
ble. Thus  they  perfectly  exhibited  human  relations."  5 

Evidently,  then,  the  repression  to  which  all  natural  ten- 
its  affirm-  dencies  are  subjected  does  not  intend  their  destruc- 
ative  eie-  tion.  On  the  contrary,  the  rights  of  all  are  studiously 
respected,  save  that  they  appear  in  that  mechanized 
form  which  belongs  to  the  intense  concreteness  of  the  na- 
tional mind.  In  the  instant  assumption  by  each  of  a  fixed 
type,  to  be  thenceforward  sacredly  maintained  as  factor  of 
an  ideal  system,  there  is  at  least  a  rare  universality  of  plan, 
as  broadly  affirmative  as  it  is  unprogressive,  and  as  persist- 
ent as  it  is  uninspired.  This  hospitality  to  all  passions  and 
desires,  as  valid  within  their  proper  limits  and  relations, 
leads  the  Chinese  to  their  characteristic  belief  that  human 
nature  is  essentially  good,  —  a  belief  as  consonant  with  the 
best  psychological  science  as  it  is  opposed  to  certain  dog- 
mas of  Shemitic  origin,  concerning  the  nature  of  man  and 
treatment  of  moral  evil,  which  are  current  in  Christianity. 

1  Chung-Yung,  I   4,  5.  2  Ibid.,  VI.  s  Lunyu,  XI.  xv.  3. 

*  Mencius,  VII.  i.  26.  «  Ibid.,  IV.  i.  i,  2. 


THE    CHINESE   MIND.  23 

The  offence  of  the  Chinese  ideal  to  the  human  faculties 
does  not  consist  in  excluding  or  denying,  but  in  over-reg- 
ulating and  mechanizing  them.  How  erroneous  it  is  to 
suppose  this  peculiar  people  to  be  entirely  wanting  in  whole 
classes  of  capacities,  —  such  as  the  religious,  poetic,  or  spon- 
taneous, —  may  be  readily  inferred  from  the  extraordinary 
variety  of  testimony  concerning  their  habits  and  Scopeo{ 
traits.  This  diversity  is  so  great  that  it  would  seem 
to  make  a  trustworthy  analysis  of  Chinese  mind  im- 


possible,  did  we  not  learn,  upon  closer  study,  that  by  the  dis- 

/  cordanceof 

the  apparent  incongruities  are  but  a  natural  result  testimony 
of  the  breadth  and  variety  of  its  qualities.  It  is  true  about  it- 
that  most  of  our  data  come  either  from  religious  functiona- 
ries who  would  obviously  be  inclined  to  overstate  the  darker 
side  of  a  civilization  which  they  wish  to  supersede,  or  else 
from  practical  tradesmen  and  political  agents  whose  in- 
terest it  would  be  to  magnify  the  attractions  of  their  own 
spheres  and  the  vastness  of  unexplored  resources  which 
have  drawn  them  to  this  marvellous  land.  But  peculiar 
circumstances  have  helped  to  counteract  both  these  causes 
of  error  ;  yielding  a  large  infusion  of  liberality  and  learning 
in  the  contributions  of  missionaries  to  our  knowledge  of 
the  Chinese,  and  greatly  tempering  the  natural  tendency 
of  travellers,  traders,  and  officials  from  remote  nations  to 
idealize  their  traits.  Besides  this,  our  data  run  back  through 
several  centuries  in  the  history  of  a  comparatively  unchang- 
ing national  type,  and  their  principal  records  of  its  spirit 
are  now  rapidly  becoming  accessible  in  a  trustworthy  form. 
So  that  fair  conclusions  from  what  we  know  of  Chinese 
tendencies  in  general  may  safely  be  followed  in  dealing  with 
this  mass  of  apparently  conflicting  testimony  as  to  special 
qualities.  While  we  guard  against  extreme  features,  as 
contrary  to  the  national  temperament  and  culture,  we  may 
reasonably  allow  a  degree  of  credence  to  very  dif-Howtodea] 
ferent  and  even  opposite  pictures  of  a  race  which  withthesc- 


24  ELEMENTS. 

does  not  renounce,  nor  yet  fuse,  its  propensities,  but  reconciles 
them  by  mutual  balance  ;  and  not  by  composition  of  forces, 
so  much  as  by  their  mechanical  conjunction.  And  we  must 
especially  bear  in  mind  its  characteristic  habit  of  hovering 
between  opposites.  The  dualism  of  the  Yin  and  Yang  is  a 
constitutional  fact,  and  as  likely  to  appear  in  moral  traits 
as  in  philosophical  theories  and  religious  beliefs. 

Chinese  literature  everywhere  enjoins  conscientiousness 
Ethical  in  stucly  and  conduct ;  practical  application  of  what 
side.  is  believed  ;  honest  payment  of  the  moral  price 
by  which  wisdom  is  earned ;  compliance  with  the 
just  conditions  of  success  by  self -discipline  and  by  steady 
routines.  Its  ethics  are  an  endless  variation  on  the  great 
texts  of  Confucius  and  Mencius  ;  which  pronounce  that  only 
loyalty  to  principles  is  power,  and  that  "he  whose  good- 
ness is  a  part  of  himself  is  the  real  man."  1  This  is  of  the 
essence  of  honesty,  and  the  persistence  with  which  this 
tone  has  dominated  the  national  thought  for  thousands  of 
years  seems  to  find  explanation  in  traits  that  rest  on  the 
best  of  evidence.  Thus  Williams,  in  common  with  all 
other  competent  observers,  testifies  to  the  general  security 
of  life  and  property  in  China  ;  2  and  Meadows,  whose  opin- 
ion of  Chinese  adherence  to  truth  is  very  low,  yet  believes 
that  there  are  "  as  many  individuals  of  high  and  firm  prin- 
ciples among  them  as  in  many,  perhaps  in  any,  of  the 
Christian  nations." 3  He  considers  the  system  of  guar- 
antee, which  pervades  all  relations,  as  supplying  the  place  of 
natural  veracity  ;  and  declares  that  he  has  "  never  known 
an  instance  of  a  Chinese  openly  violating  a  guarantee  known 
to  have  been  given  by  him."  This  sacredness  of  the  bond 
resides,  according  to  him,  in  its  public  necessity,  rather 
than  in  the  authority  of  truth.  Doubtless  we  have  here  an 

*  Mencius,  VII.  ii.  25.  2  Middle  Kingdom,  I.  42. 

8  Notes  on  Gov't.  and  People  of  China,  p.  216. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  25 

instance  of  the  tendency  of  all  ideals  to  resolve  themselves 
into  parts  of  a  mechanized  whole,  and  so  to  appear  at  last, 
not  in  their  own  right,  but  in  their  public  relations.  Pum- 
pelly's  experience  "  did  not  corroborate  the  accepted  ideas 
concerning  the  dishonesty  of  the  Chinese."  1  Brine,  in  his 
careful  history  of  the  Taiping  rebellion,  denies  the  com- 
mon charges  of  rapacity  and  fraud.2  Father  Hue's  state- 
ment, that  "  European  merchants  who  have  had  dealings 
with  the  great  commercial  houses  of  China  are  unanimous 
in  extolling  the  irreproachable  probity  of  their  conduct," 
is  generally  admitted.3  Giles  speaks  of  the  trustworthi- 
ness of  servants  left  in  the  entire  charge  of  houses,  and 
thinks  thieving  is  not  more  common  than  in  England.4 
Medhurst  tells  us  that  "honesty  is  by  no  means  a  rare 
virtue,"  and  that  the  Chinese  boy,  in  this  quality,  "will 
match,  if  well  treated,  with  any  servant  in  the  world  ;  "  that 
for  thirty  years  he  lost  nothing  by  theft  in  China  but  a 
small  revolver ;  that  the  Chinese  take  no  such  precautions 
as  we  do  against  fraud  in  dealing  with  each  other ;  that 
large  sums  are  constantly  entrusted  to  native  hands  in  the 
transactions  of  the  interior,  where  the  temptation  to  em- 
bezzlement is  very  great.6  It  is  well  known  that  Chinese 
merchants  do  not  generally  give  nor  require  written  agree- 
ments in  their  dealings  with  foreigners.  Objects  of  value 
are  exposed  for  sale  as  it  would  not  be  possible  to  do  in 
England  ;  and  lines  of  coolies  carry  money  freely  through 
the  streets  without  protection  from  police.  Scarth  states 
that  not  more  than  one  per  cent  of  the  tea  bought  at  Can- 
ton was  examined  by  the  buyers.  Davis  describes  the 
public  porters  as  so  trustworthy,  that  "  not  a  single  article 
was  lost  by  the  British  embassies  in  all  the  distance  be- 
tween the  northern  and  southern  extremes  of  the  empire."  6 

1  Across  America  and  Asia,  p.  321.  *  Brine,  p.  345. 

8  Travels  in  Chin.  Empire,  II.  146.  *  Chinese  Sketches,  p.  122. 

6  Medhurst,  Foreigner  in  Far  Cathay,  pp.  170,  30,  171,  172. 

8  Davis's  Chinese,  Lond,  1845,  II.  63. 


26  ELEMENTS. 

Morache,  the  author  of  a  very  careful  description  of  Peking, 
says  the  laborer  does  not  shirk  work,  and  is  perhaps  more 
conscientious  than  the  French  ;  "  he  does  not  seek  to  de- 
ceive, but  gets  his  pay  loyally  ;  will  haggle  for  an  hour  for 
a  few  centimes,  but  will  be  the  slave  of  his  engagements."  1 
Knox  gives  similar  testimony  as  to  the  traders  ;  who,  he 
says,  will  circumvent  when  they  can,  but  when  the  bargain 
is  made,  adhere  to  it ;  their  word  being  as  good  as  their 
bond.2  Medhurst  testifies,  from  very  long  acquaintance 
with  the  working  of  Chinese  institutions,  that  although  the 
scanty  salaries  of  officials  and  the  crowd  of  subordinates 
made  necessary  by  the  concentration  of  many  functions  in 
one  mandarin  lead  to  a  vast  amount  of  peculation  and 
bribery,  much  of  it  through  secretaries,  yet  these  officials 
as  a  class  lead  a  laborious  life,  and  not  unfrequently  win  the 
esteem  and  devotion  of  the  people  ;  while  those  on  the 
other  hand  who  arouse  popular  indignation  by  their  cor- 
ruption are  certain  to  be  reprimanded  and  punished  by 
their  superiors.3  Extreme  wholesale  denunciations  of  Chi- 
nese officials  are  proved  superficial  by  such  well-balanced 
estimates  as  this  ;  to  which  we  may  add  Williams' s  state- 
ment, that,  although  the  mandarins  "  spend  their  lives  in 
ambitious  efforts  to  rise  upon  the  fall  of  others,"  they  "  do 
not  lose  all  sense  of  character,  or  become  reckless  of  the 
means  of  advance  ;  for  this  would  destroy  their  chance  of 
success."  4  On  the  general  honesty  and  fidelity  of  the  Chi- 
nese in  California  we  need  only  refer  to  the  testimony  of 
competent  observers  like  Speer,  Bowles,  Brace,  Palmer,  to 
the  effect  that  no  class  of  foreign  miners  sustain  so  high  a 
character,  and  that  no  laborers  on  public  works  so  satisfac- 
torily fulfil  their  engagements. 

On  the  other  hand,  Eitel  asserts  that  China  is  the  "  para- 
dise of  thieves  ; "  5  and  Montfort,  that  "  their  cunning  is 

1  Peking,  p.  80.  2  Overland,  &c.,  p.  312. 

3  Foreigner  in  Far  Cathay,  pp.  85-89.  *  Middle  Kingdom,  I.  356. 

8  Notes  and  Queries,  II.  No.  2. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  2/ 

such  that  they  succeed  in  duping  themselves,  and  deceit 
is  everywhere  the  order  of  the  day."  l  Fortune  had  many 
adventures  with  robbers  in  the  open  country  around  Can- 
ton. Martin  reports  the  Chinese  police  to  be  of  corrupt 
and  abandoned  character.2  Williams  says  of  the  people 
generally,  that  "  they  feel  no  shame  at  being  detected  in  a 
lie ;  "  but  we  must  remember  his  opinion  that  "  it  would  be 
a  strange  wonder  in  the  world  to  find  a  heathen  people  who 
did  speak  the  truth."  3  Others,  however,  less  orthodox,  agree 
with  him.4  The  prevalence  of  freebooting  and  piracy  in  all 
ages  of  Chinese  history  is  notorious  ;  but  the  cause  lies  ob- 
viously, not  so  much  in  disregard  for  rights  of  property,  as 
in  the  famines,  rebellions,  and  provincial  wars  of  this  enor- 
mous and  crowded  population.  The  English  have  been 
loud  in  their  charges  of  political  trickery  against  Chinese 
officials,  during  the  wars  by  which  the  gates  of  the  Middle 
Kingdom  have  been  forced  open  ;  but  the  effect  of  these 
charges  is  not  a  little  weakened  by  the  utterly  demoralizing 
purpose  which  the  complainants  were  pushing  on,  and  by 
the  fact  that  cunning  is  the  only  defence  of  the  feeble 
against  the  strong.  It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  insist  on 
the  adulteration  of  teas  with  sulphate  of  copper,  a  "  medi- 
cine "  provided  by  the  native  manufacturers,  with  smiles  of 
wonder,  to  satisfy  the  .special  taste  of  the  foreign  barba- 
rian ; 5  nor  on  the  infusion  of  Prussian  blue,  manufactured, 
the  Cantonese  say,  by  a  process  taught  them  by  English- 
men.6 

Upon  the  whole,  this  contradictory  testimony  need  not 
confuse  one  who  reflects  on  the  interaction  of  opposite 
qualities  already  ascribed  to  the  Chinese  mind.  It  points 
to  an  average  honesty  in  the  masses,  certainly  not  inferior 
to  that  which  our  best  types  of  Western  national  character 
would  present.  But  it  also  shows  how  utilitarianism  offsets 

1   Voyage  en  Chine,  p.  89.        2  China,  I.  153.  3  Middle  Kingdom,  II.  96. 

4  Giles,  pp.  123-126.  6  De  Mas,  I.  154.  6  Notes  and  Queries,  May,  1840. 


28  ELEMENTS. 

or  balances  the  love  of  truth  and  justice,  so  manifest  in 
their  ethics  and  their  labor,  with  a  politic  shrewdness  as 
regards  personal  interests,  which  is  apt  to  pass  into  less 
creditable  traits  ;  the  two  tendencies  maintaining  a  kind  of 
mechanical  balance,  instead  of  being  fused,  as  they  would 
have  been  in  more  ardent  temperaments,  into  a  definite 
type  of  character.  This  defect  may  astonish  us  when 
observed  on  so  large  a  scale ;  yet  it  really  illustrates  the 
action  of  familiar  laws  to  which  no  people  is  a  stranger. 
And  our  data  prove  that  what  it  expresses  is  not  an  or- 
ganic tendency  in  the  Chinese  to  practical  violation  of  their 
own  moral  ideal,  but  the  coexistence  of  tendencies  which 
the  want  of  a  free  contemplative  study  of  the  ideal  has 
caused  to  fail  of  being  solved  in  a  higher  unity.  The 
result  is  neither  the  extreme  virtuousness  which  their  lit- 
erature would  promise,  nor  the  extreme  insincerity  which 
has  so  often  been  charged  upon  them,  —  but  a  combina- 
tion of  honor  and  policy,  each  in  a  repressed  form  ;  and, 
upon  the  whole  testimony,  strikingly  creditable  to  an  un- 
progressive  race. 

Williams  describes  the  Chinese  as  "  a  vile  and  polluted 
personal  people,  among  whom  brutality  and  coarseness  are 
Morals.  covered  by  a  mere  varnish  of  manners." 1  Yet 
he  allows  that  "  they  have  more  virtues  than  most  pagan 
nations  ; "  that  there  are  no  gin-palaces  nor  indecent  the- 
atrical shows,  and  even  that  public  opinion  favors  morality 
more  than  among  their  neighbors.2  The  Penal  Code  has 
penalties  for  keeping  a  gambling  house.  Classic  odes, 
imperial  edicts,  and  moral  precepts  denouncing  intemper- 
ance testify  in  all  times  to  the  prevalence  of  this  vice,  and 
to  the  strenuous  effort  to  repress  it.3  Alcohol  in  Western 
countries  kills  ten  persons  to  one  victim  of  opium  in  China. 

1  Middle  Kingdom,  II.  96-98.  *  Ibid.  II.  14,  88;  I.  435- 

3  Liki,  III.  iii.  ;  Ibid.,  II.  ;  Shuking,  V.  v. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  2Q 

Delirium  tremens  is  unknown ;  nor  is  opium  smoking 
easily  propagated,  as  it  destroys  the  procreative  force, 
having  thus  a  natural  check.1  The  use  of  very  small  glasses 
and  of  weak  and  watered  wine  at  entertainments  is  a  very 
old  and  honored  custom. 

The  earnest  efforts  of  the  government  to  suppress  traffic 
in  opium  gives  evidence  of  the  fearful  demoralization  this 
drug  has  produced  since  its  introduction  in  large  quantities 
by  European  traders-.  Yet  in  earlier  times  there  appears 
no  evidence  of  its  use.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  social 
vice ;  and  recent  statistics  point  to  syphilis  and  an  allied 
form  of  leprosy  as  prevalent  in  many  parts  of  China.  2  The 
experiment  of  legalizing  vices  so  deeply  rooted  in  all  large 
communities,  under  all  forms  of  civilization,  has  been  tried 
in  China,  as  elsewhere,  as  a  method  of  restraint.  Doubt- 
less, Medhurst  indicates  a  more  effectual  influence  when  he 
says  of  prostitution  in  the  large  cities  that  law  and  public 
opinion  combine  to  keep  it  under  a  certain  check,  and  that 
the  practice  of  early  marriage  must  also  have  a  salutary 
effect  in  counteracting  it.3  The  Chinese  have  carefully 
kept  all  immoral  suggestions  out  of  their  literature  and 
art ;  and  the  classical  Books  of  Instruction  enforce  the 
law  of  purity  as  springing  directly  out  of  the  profoundest 
principle  of  the  national  belief.  "  As  our  bodies  are  in- 
herited from  our  parents,  let  us  not  dare  to  be  negligent 
or  base  in  our  treatment  of  them."4  No  nation  in  the 
world,  of  whatever  religion,  possesses  a  literature  so  pure. 
It  has  been  said  that  there  is  not  a  single  sentence  in  the 
whole  of  the  classical  books,  nor  in  their  annotations,  that  ' 
may  not,  when  translated  word  for  word,  be  read  aloud 
with  propriety  in  any  family  circle  in  England.  Not  a 
sign  of  human  sacrifice,  of  the  deification  of  vice,  of  licen- 
tious rites  and  orgies,  exists  in  China ;  and  not  an  indecent 

1  Gileses  Sketches,   pp.  104,  113.  s  Morache,  Peking,  p.  130-132. 

*  Foreigner  in  Far  Cathay,  p.  117.  *  Siaohiao,  ch.  ii. 


30  ELEMENTS. 

idol  is  exposed  in  any  temple.1  Are  we  to  infer  that  the 
great  number  of  immoral  pictures  on  walls  and  teacups, 
observed  by  Erman  at  Maimachin,  the  great  trading  post 
on  the  Siberian  border,2  were  intended  to  meet  a  special 
demand  of  Northern  and  Western  peoples  ?  The  conclusion 
to  which  we  should  be  led  by  these  differing  data  on  the 
morality  of  the  Chinese,  as  well  as  by  what  has  been  said 
of  their  psychological  qualities  in  general,  is  fully  con- 
firmed by  the  testimony  of  Nevius  :  "The  difference  in  the 
standard  and  practice  of  virtue  between  China  and  Chris- 
tian lands  is  certainly  not  so  striking  as  to  form  the  basis 
of  a  very  marked  contrast,  or  to  render  it  modest  or  prudent 
for  us  to  designate  any  particular  vice  or  class  of  vices  as 
especially  characteristic  of  the  Chinese."  3  This  piece  of 
justice  loses  none  of  its  force  from  the  fact  that  the  writer 
hastens  to  inform  us  that,  nevertheless,  he  believes  "  a  high 
degree  of  moral  culture  to  be  consistent  with  the  greatest 
spiritual  ignorance  and  destitution  "  (i.  e.,  as  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  Christ),  and  that  "  Satan  has  used  this  instru- 
mentality of  a  (good)  moral  system  in  China  to  keep  the 
soul  away  from  God  "  ! 4 

Nevius  further  testifies,  from  ten  years  intercourse  as  a 
missionary  with  the  Chinese,  to  the  extremely  low  opinion 
which  they  have  formed  of  the  morality  of  Christian  races  ; 
founded  partly  on  experience  of  their  political  and  mercan- 
tile operations,  and  partly  on  the  brutal  and  sensual  habits 
Effects  of  °^  Western  sailors  in  the  Chinese  ports.  His  evi- 
over-popu-  dence  shows  that  the  native  population  are  becom- 
ing demoralized  by  this  contact.5  It  is  no  less 
certain  that  most  of  the  charges  brought  against  their 
moral  charact^  as  a  people  are  drawn  from  observations 
made  in  the  great  trading  ports,  and  especially  Hongkong, 
which  are  of  course  subject  to  the  worst  influences,  foreign 

1  Meadows,  The  Chinese  and  their  Rebellions^  p.  396. 

2  Erman's  Siberia^  II.  188.  8  Nevius's  China  and  the  Chinese,  p.  290. 
4  Ibid ,  p  291.  B  Ibid.,  p.  283,  284. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  31 

and  native.  As  to  the  interior,  the  testimony  of  travellers 
is  almost  universally  favorable.  The  cities  of  China  are 
probably  the  most  densely  peopled  in  the  world  :  the  poor 
in  this  oldest  of  empires  have  come  to  pack  themselves 
more  closely  than  any  similar  class  in  other  countries. 
Such  circumstances,  aggravated  by  misgovernment  and 
the  lack  of  energy  and  progress,  have  produced  effects 
which  it  would  be  exaggeration  to  describe  as  national 
habits  and  traits.  One  of  these  is  uncleanliness,  of  which 
the  large  cities  of  the  coast  are  doubtless  dire  examples. 
Yet  these  bad  conditions  do  not  greatly  affect  the  lon- 
gevity of  the  people,  who  live  mostly  in  the  open  air,  dress 
comfortably,  and  are  cheerful  and  social.1  While  the  city 
of  New  York  counts  one  pauper  for  every  fifty  persons, 
and  the  proportion  in  the  whole  State  is  nearly  half  as 
large,  we  can  hardly  condemn  Chinese  civilization  for  fail- 
ing to  diffuse  the  blessings  of  self-support. 

Excessive  population  has  caused  singular  effects  in  some 
of  the  cities  ;  where  beggars  have  become  a  recognized 
caste,  with  rights,  it  is  said,  of  roving  and  pillage  on  certain 
days,  and  of  organizing  to  levy  funds  for  their  support.2 
The  sale  of  children  by  their  parents  in  stress  of  poverty 
involves  less  mischief  than  we  should  expect ;  as  the  buyer 
is  forbidden  to  sell  the  child  again,  or  to  use  it  for  vicious 
purposes.  This  slavery  is  not  perpetual ;  nor  are  girls, 
bought  for  domestic  service,  excluded  from  ordinary  femi- 
nine culture,  nor  from  the  best  marriages.3  Mendoza 
(i6th  century)  says  that  in  his  time  there  was  no  beggary 
in  China,  all  the  poor  being  supported.  But  the  most 
startling  sign  of  poverty  is  the  readiness  with  which  a 
condemned  criminal  can  obtain  a  substitute,  who  will  give 
his  life  for  the  sum  needed  to  support  his  family.  Whether 

1  Lay's  Chinese  as  they  Are,  p.  260;  Morache,  p.  88.    The  Jesuit  Fathers  (in  Alvarez, 
1565)  noted  the  neatness  of  their  apparel. 
1  Fleming,  p.  70.     Morache,  108,  113. 
8  De  Mas,  I.  132-135.     Medhurst,  Foreigner  in  Far  Cathay,  pp.  91,  101. 


32  ELEMENTS. 

poverty  alone  explains  this  kind  of  martyrdom  is  doubtful  ; 
yet  suicides  arising  from  poverty  have  recently  amounted 
in  France  to  three  thousand  a  year.1  Of  the  dreadful 
excesses  attendant  on  famines,  —  a  common  calamity  in 
China,  owing  to  imperfect  internal  transfer  of  produce,  and 
the  enormous  population  to  be  fed,  — it  is  needless  to  speak 
in  detail. 

Infanticide,  another  clear  result  of  poverty,  is  due  in 
infanticide.  some  degree  to  the  inability  of  parents  to  pay  the 
expenses  requisite  on  the  marriage  of  daughters,2 
But  its  extent  has  been  greatly  exaggerated.  "  The  whole 
nation,"  says  Williams,  "  has  been  branded  as  systematic 
murderers  of  their  children  from  the  practice  of  the  inhab- 
itants of  a  portion  of  two  provinces,  who  are  regarded  as 
among  the  most  violent  and  the  poorest  in  the  whole 
eighteen."  3  There  is  eminent  medical  and  other  authority 
for  saying  that  the  proportion  of  infanticides  is  not  greater 
in  China  than  in  England,  or  America.4  Chinese  are  quite 
as  fond  of  their  children  as  other  people ;  and  though  boys 
are  more  desired  than  girls,  yet  both  are  equally  cherished.6 
It  is  a  popular  proverb,  "  Even  the  tiger  does  not  devour 
his  own  young."  Bodies  of  children  are  frequently  found 
floating  in  rivers  or  lying  on  roads  ;  but  the  fact  is  explained 
by  the  popular  belief  that  formal  burial  is  not  necessary 
for  the  very  young.6  Public  opinion  is  rapidly  putting  an 
end  to  it,  even  in  Amoy,  where  remonstrances  against  it 
from  the  literary  class  have  been  posted  in  public  places 
for  a  long  period.7  Government  edicts  and  exhortations 
have  not  been  wanting,  however  incompetent,  to  abolish  a 
practice  more  dependent  on  social  conditions  than  on  laws 
or  desires. 

De  Mas,  I.  13^-139'  2  Chinese  Repository,  Oct.  1843  ;  De  Mas,  I.  37. 

Williams,  II.  260. 

Pumpelly,  p.  261.     Morache,  p.  116;  Irisson,  La.  Chine  Cotemp,,  p.  63. 

Medhurst,  Foreigner  in  Far  Cathay,  pp.   98,  99 ;  Davis,  Sketches,  p.  99 ;  Morache, 


p.  i 


5  ;  Giles,  Sketches,  p.  157. 
Medhurst,  p.  97.     Davis's  Chinese,  II.  119,  120.        7  Chinese  Repository,  Oct.  1843. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  33 

The  order  and  quiet  that  prevail,  especially   by  night, 
in  Chinese  cities  have  been  noticed  by  all  travellers,   social 
The  greatest  harmony  and  tranquillity  reign  among  f 
the  boat-population  of  Canton.1  The  gates  of  cities  are  closed 
at  nightfall.,  shops  are  shut,  and  the  people  resort  to  their 
homes,  with  little  need  of  local  police.2     The  good  temper 
and  even  courtesy  of  crowds  are  said  to  be  equally  striking  ; 
long  lines  wait  quietly,  and  there  is  no  pushing.3 

Hiibner  describes  the  Cantonese  as  seeming  to  be  made 
of  cotton  wool.  When  the  British  legation  passed  through 
Tien-tsin,  "  the  streets  were  crowded  for  a  mile's  distance, 
yet  the  silence  and  respect  of  the  populace  suggested  a  sea 
of  heads  in  a  perfect  calm."  4  The  childish  curiosity  and 
familiarity  shown  in  other  instances  give  weight  to  this 
evidence  of  their  power  of  self-control.  The  same  orderly 
habits  were  recognized  by  the  oldest  writers  on  the  Chinese. 
Pliny  describes  them  as  mild  and  reserved.  Ammianus 
speaks  of  their  quiet  behavior,  and  unwarlike  spirit ;  "  a 
still  and  gentle  people,  frugal  and  shy,  and  wonderfully  self- 
restrained."  5  This  peaceable  civilization,  a  great  still 
world  of  industry  and  resource,  far  off  in  the  horizon  of 
imagination,  seems  to  have  strongly  impressed  the  Greek 
mind.  The  Arab  travellers  in  the  ninth  century  are  not 
complimentary,  and  make  severe  charges  against  the  relig- 
ion and  life  of  the  Chinese  ;  yet  they  too  praise  their  admin- 
istration of  justice  and  their  social  order.6  Marco  Polo  says 
that  contentious  broils  are  never  heard  among  the  people  of 
Kin-sai  ;  and  that  those  who  inhabit  the  same  street,  from 
the  mere  circumstance  of  neighborhood,  appear  like  one 
family.7  In  fact,  "  moderation,  self-control,  self-restraint, 
absence  of  excess,  is  the  essence  of  Chinese  virtue." 8 


1  Davis,  II.  p.  119.  J  Brooks,  Run,  &*c.t  p,  274. 

8  Williams,  II.  68;  Brooks,  p.  266.  4  Davis,  Sketches,  p.  42. 

*  Pliny,  Natural  History)  vi.  20.     Ammianus,  xxiii.  6,  64. 

8  Renaudot's  Version  (1733)  p.  73-  7  Marco  Polo,  B.  n.  ch.  68. 

•  Wuttke,  Gesch.  d.  Heidetitb.,  II.  128. 

3 


34  ELEMENTS. 

Assassinations  are  rare.  The  duel  is  unknown.  The  fear 
of  public  opinion  and  the  ceremonial  of  manners  enforce 
mutual  respect.  By  nothing  are  they  more  shocked  than 
by  European  customs  that  ignore  or  outrage  the  expecta- 
tions of  others.  De  Mas  having  told  his  attendants  to  inform 
a  visitor  that  he  was  out,  they  answered,  "  He  will  be 
shocked  if  you  treat  him  so."  "  So  much  the  better,"  said 
the  Frenchman  :  "  he  won't  come  again."  Whereat  they 
whispered  to  each  other,  "  This  person  has  no  education." 
The  porters,  waiting  for  him  in  the  courtyard,  would  not 
ask  for  their  dinners,  because  they  were  not  invited.1  Per- 
haps the  higher  mark  of  real  civilization  is  the  disposition 
to  resort  to  moral,  rather  than  physical,  modes  of  settling 
disputes,  and  to  recognize  the  force  of  reason ;  and  for  this 
the  Chinese  are  conspicuous.  Meadows  says  that  a  posted 
placard,  exposing  the  unreasonableness  of  one's  conduct,  is 
as  effective  as  such  an  exposure  in  an  English  newspaper,  if 
not  more  so.2  They  regard  passion  as  indecent  and  vulgar, 
and  "bear  injuries  with  an  equanimity  that  would  make  a 
European  ungovernable."  3  They  despise  rudeness,  instead 
of  being  enraged  at  it.  A  shopkeeper's  patience  and  polite- 
ness are  inexhaustible  ;  and  stories  are  told  of  the  endurance 
of  discomfort  and  injury  out  of  pure  good  manners,  that 
prove  this  capacity  to  be  of  a  heroic  type.  Lord  Macart- 
ney's embassy  was  impressed  by  the  dignity,  politeness, 
and  good  humor  of  all  the  officials  with  whom  they  had 
to  deal.4 

For  aggressive  warfare  they  seem  to  have  little  taste, 
Peaceable-  P^Y^S  at  soldiers  with  lanterns  tied  to  matchlocks, 
ness.  and  painted  towers  constructed  of  mats  ;  labelling 
their  troops  on  the  back  with  boastful  words,  and  arming 
them  with  rusty  ineffective  weapons,  made  more  awkward 
by  unsuitable  dress.5  Their  armies  are  ill-disciplined,  and 

1  De  Mas,  pp.  140,  141.  2  Notes  on  Government,  &c.t  of  China,  p.  204. 

8  Ibid.,  pp.  202,  203.  *  Barrow,  p.  186. 

6  Davis,  Sketches,  pp.  140,  156;  Williams,  II.  160. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  35 

little  better  than  "  an  unwilling  mob  of  forced  men."  "  The 
Chinese,  of  all  men, "  says  Lecomte,  "  love  best  to  sleep 
in  a  whole  skin."  Mr.  Lay  asserts  that  they  do  not  know 
how  to  double  up  the  fist,  nor  to  parry  blows.  It  is  an  old 
saying  that,  where  the  ground  is  wet  with  blood  of  battle, 
there  springs  up  the  will-o'-the-wisp.1  The  old  classic  odes 
abound  in  lamentations  over  the  evil  fate  of  serving  on 
distant  expeditions,  and  the  sorrows  of  families  at  these 
long  separations.  This  tone  of  complaint  seems  to  have 
been  consecrated,  as  of  peculiar  moral  and  poetic  value. 
Peace  is  indeed  essential  to  the  nation's  faith  in  its  insti- 
tutions as  the  established  harmony  of  heaven  and  earth. 
Tranquillity  is  written  on  its  edicts,  and  Heavenly  Rest  on 
its  palace  gates.  Its  very  principle  is  Repose.  As  being 
already  complete,  holding  all  nations  as  its  children  and 
parts  of  its  divine  order,  an  aggressive  policy  on  its  part 
would  seem  impossible.  The  Imperial  sceptre  of  jade  is 
called,  "Just  as  you  will,"  and  the  nymphaea  is  carved  on 
its  upper  end  as  a  floral  emblem  of  brotherhood.2  It  is  a 
curious  fact  that  in  the  oldest  governmental  arrangements 
—  those  of  Yu  —  as  given  in  the  Shuking,  a  department  of 
war  is  lacking.  Shun,  the  ancient  ideal  ruler,  says  to  his 
followers :  "  Do  well  yourselves  ;  the  barbarian  then  will 
submit  to  you."  3  "  In  no  Chinese  city,"  says  Plath,  "  have 
I  seen  soldiers  :  mandarins  walk  in  the  streets  escorted  by 
axes  and  lances,  but  these  are  of  wood,  and  a  gong  pre- 
cedes them.  The  word  for  war  (wu)  means  simply  '  to 
control  anarchy,'  and  conquest  (tching)  is  merely  'to 
bring  order.' "  The  emphasis  laid  by  almost  every  Chi- 
nese moralist  on  the  iniquity  of  war,  and  the  subordination 
of  the  military  to  political  and  civil  institutions,  are 
familiar  to  all  readers. 

And  yet  there  is  manifestly  a  reverse  side  to  this  pict- 

1  Plath  on  Chinete  Military  Affairs,  Bay.  Ak.  1873. 

*  Davis,  Chinese,  II.  45.  3  Shuking,  II.  2. 


36  ELEMENTS. 

ure.  Self-defence  was  of  course  indispensable,  and  the 
There-  oldest  written  signs  are  evidence  of  the  use  of 
;'  warlike  weapons  in  primitive  times.  The  first 
wars,  according  to  the  Shu,  were  not  aggressive,  yet  they 
were  undertaken  at  "  the  command  of  Heaven."  The  Liki 
says  that  in  those  times,  on  the  birth  of  a  male  child  a  bow 
with  arrows  was  hung  beside  the  door.  Every  one  was 
subject  to  military  duty.  All  this  is  probably  legend,  but 
we  know  that  China  had  standing  armies  in  the  seventh 
century.  Foreign  wars  built  the  Great  Wall,  and  domestic 
ones  covered  the  land  with  fortified  towns.  The  royal 
hunts  were  organized  for  military  education,  not  from  mere 
love  of  destroying  game. 

The  people  are  divided  into  clans,  whose  quarrels  are 
constant,  and  frequently  produce  civil  war  on  an  extensive 
scale.  The  study  of  Chinese  history  has  revealed  the 
startling  fact  of  an  almost  unbroken  series  of  internal  wars 
from  the  earliest  to  the  latest  times.  Of  the  twenty-six  dy- 
nasties that  have  covered  a  space  of  four  thousand  •  years, 
every  one,  except  the  T'ang,  rose  and  set  in  revolution.  The 
numbers  recorded  as  slain  in  the  perpetual  strifes  of  petty 
princes  and  semi-independent  States  would  be  incredible, 
but  for  the  well  ascertained  series  of  fluctuations  in  the 
population  of  the  empire,  which  they  only  can  explain.1 
The  transition  from  feudalism  to  imperialism,  in  the  third 
century  B.  c.,  is  reported  to  have  cost  the  lives  of  a  third  of 
the  people.  The  triumph  of  the  Han  dynasty,  three  hun- 
dred years  afterwards,  was  won  by  the  slaughter  of  a  mil- 
lion. Periods  of  many  hundred  years  have  been  spent  in 
uninterrupted  civil  wars.  The  Han  perished  after  a  strife 
of  thirty-five  years  ;  the  Tsin  in  an  insurrection  of  twenty. 
Seventy  years'  struggle  destroyed  the  Sung ;  and  the  Yuen, 
or  Mongol,  its  conquerors,  after  barbarous  conflicts  which 

1  Plath  on  Chinese  Military  Affairs,  Bay.  Ak.  1873;  Sacharoff,  Arbeiten  d.  Rnss. 
GesancUch.  zu  Peking;  also  Biot,  Journal  A siafiyue,  1836. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  37 

depopulated  whole  regions  and  drove  great  numbers  into 
brigandage,  succumbed  to  a  native  revolt  that  had  lasted 
twenty  years.1  It  has  even  been  sought  to  prove,  from  the 
incessant  warfare  that  makes  Chinese  history  monotonous, 
that  universal  and  permanent  peace  is  impossible.2  The 
desolation  produced  by  the  Taiping  rebellion,  and  the  pro- 
digious destruction  of  life  that  has  attended  it,  are  but  a 
repetition  of  what  we  may  read  in  the  old  annals  of  the 
wars  of  Tcheou,  and  the  fall  of  Tsin.3  It  would  almost 
seem  as  if  this  swarming  population  illustrated  Malthus, 
and  that  depletion  by  continual  blood-letting  was  the  na- 
tional necessity.  We  cannot  overlook,  moreover,  a  pro- 
pensity to  expansion  that  seems  at  variance  with  the 
peaceful  traits  and  tendencies  already  described.  They 
have  been  frequently  at  war  with  Corea,  Japan,  Thibet, 
Bucharia :  and  the  Han  were  masters  of  a  zone  through 
Asia,  from  near  the  Caspian  to  Siam.  Four  times  this  per- 
sistent people  have  subdued  Tartary,  and  their  wars  with 
the  hordes  of  Central  Asia  have  been  incessant.  We  must 
note  also  the  democratic  excitability  and  disposition  to  re- 
bellion which  are  constants  in  their  history.  It  is  sufficient 
at  present  to  observe  of  this  tendency  that  it  is  strong 
enough  to  hold  the  imperial  government  in  check,  and  to 
keep  the  national  tone  constantly  up  to  a  conception  of 
public  responsibility  which  excludes  the  very  idea  of  arbi- 
trary personal  power. 

Whether  all  this  should  lead  us  to  pronounce  the  Chinese 
a  quarrelsome  people,  is  at  least  questionable.     The  General 
vast  scale  on  which  human  nature  appears  in  this  result- 
great  empire  would  lead  us  to  expect  proportionate  demon- 
strations of  every  element  of  character.     Its  history  in  fact 
passes  through  most  of  the  phases,  and  exhibits  most  of 

1  Letter  of  Medhurst  to  Hon.  Caleb  Gushing,  April  17,  1856. 
1  Chinese  Repository,  March,  1835. 

8  Pfizmaier,  Sitzber.  d.  Wie-n.  Akad.  July  and  Oct.  1869  ;  also,  Plath,  Sitzber.  d-  Bayer- 
isch.  Akad.,  Feb.  1870;  Legge's  TchuntsUu,  of  Confucius;  Sacharoff. 


38  ELEMENTS. 

the  phenomena,  of  the  life  of  Western  nations,  —  gradual 
growth  from  small  beginnings ;  leagues  and  strifes  of 
petty  States  ;  feudal  subordinations  and  chieftaincies ; 
consolidations  and  dissolutions ;  plots  and  conspiracies, 
domestic  intrigues  and  disputed  successions,  making  and 
unmaking  dynasties  ;  rivalries  of  religions  ;  outbreaks  of 
local  discontent  under  ambitious  leaders  ;  invasions  and 
border  warfare  without  intermission.  Such  variety  of  ex- 
perience gives  ground  for  expecting  just  that  diversity  of 
traits  which  at  first  seems  so  self-contradictory;  and  we 
are  warned  against  formulizing  the  capacities  of  such  a 
people  within  narrow  limits  or  one-sided  negations. 

Such  facts  as  these  should  forbid  us  to  suppose  them 
Courage,  wanting  in  courage.  Their  military  annals  abound 
in  brave  leaders,  bold  censors,  and  heroic  martyrs  to  public 
duty.1  Persistent  defences  of  besieged  towns,  ending  in  the 
self-destruction  of  the  defenders  by  thousands,  illustrate  the 
history  of  wars  with  Tartars  and  European  invaders.  The 
desperate  courage  of  Manchu  garrisons  like  those  of  Chin- 
kiang  and  Chapu,  and  the  defence  of  the  Peiho  against  the 
French  and  English  fleets  in  the  opium  war,  enforce  our 
strongest  sympathy.2  The  northern  provinces  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Mongols  in  the  eleventh  century,  not  from 
lack  of  native  valor,  but  as  a  consequence  of  internal  dis- 
sensions. After  three  centuries  of  rule,  the  intruders  were 
expelled  by  the  uprising  of  patriot  forces  under  a  leader 
who  had  been  a  servant  in  a  Buddhist  monastery.  Two 
centuries  of  Manchu  dominion  have  not  quelled  the  national 
spirit,  and  the  vast  extent  and  prodigious  energy  of  the 
Taiping  rebellion  would  have  perhaps  resulted  in  the  over- 
throw of  the  Tsing  dynasty  but  for  the  interference  of 
European  arms.  Fleming  describes  the  soldierly  qualities 
of  the  northern  Chinese  as  fitted  to  make  them  a  match 


1  Pfitzmaier,  Platli,  Fleming,  et  al. 

2  Williams,  I.  79,  86  ;  II.  552  ;  St.  Denys,  La  Chine  devant  L?  Europe- 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  39 

for  any  other  Eastern  people  in  war ;  and  Medhurst,  de- 
scribing disregard  of  peril  in  the  pursuit  of  an  object  as  a 
national  characteristic,  instances  the  coolness  of  the  native 
corps  of  the  British  forces  in  their  Peking  campaign  in 
face  of  heavy  fires,  and  the  steady  courage  of  Chinese 
troops  under  foreign  officers  in  the  Taiping  war.1  A 
people  who  have  erected  nearly  twenty-five  hundred  for- 
tresses, and  surrounded  seventeen  hundred  cities  with 
walls,  cannot  be  lacking  in  the  faculty  of  self-defence. 

It  is  unquestionable  that  their  courage  is  of  a  passive 
quality,  and  has  its  root  in  a  wonderful  power  of  . 
endurance,  rather  than  in  that  love  of  military  qualities, 
achievement  which  would  have  led  to  discipline  Endurance- 
and  culture  in  the  art  of  war.  It  is  in  suffering  that  the 
force  of  Chinese  character  becomes  most  impressive.  In 
those  terrible  massacres  of  hundreds  at  a  time,  which  they 
call  executions,  the  most  cruel  pains  and  the  ghastliest  antic- 
ipations seldom  extort  a  murmur  or  a  groan.  The  readi- 
ness with  which  whole  multitudes  resort  to  suicide,  rather 
than  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy  or  survive  defeat  and 
disgrace,  shows  what  insensibility  to  fears  or  suf-  suicidal 
ferings  this  force  of  endurance  can  attain.  It  Pr°PeQsity- 
becomes  a  species  of  fatalism.  In  timestof  great  public 
misery,  instead  of  rising  to  the  active  energy  demanded  by 
the  situation,  they  kill  themselves  and  their  families,  with 
a  self-abandonment  in  singular  contrast  with  their  patience 
in  enduring  physical  sufferings.  Suicide  is  common  from 
the  most  trivial  causes.  It  is  probable  that  this  despair  is 
the  natural  consequence  of  the  psychological  quality  to 
which  we  have  already  referred  the  main  points  in  their 
character.  They  are  so  incapable  of  separating  their  ideal 
faith  from  the  concrete  facts  of  their  social  and  political 
order,  that  they  cannot  exist  when  these  are  broken  down. 
Their  propensity  to  suicide  is  a  species  of  insanity  like  that 

1  Foreigner  in  Far  Cathay,  p.  177. 


4O  ELEMENTS. 

of  animals  removed  from  temperate  to  arctic  zones,  and 
deprived  of  the  alternation  of  day  and  night  on  which  their 
instincts  depend.  "  Man,"  says  the  poet  Litaipe,  "  when 
things  are  not  in  harmony  with  his  desires,  can  but  throw 
himself  into  a  bark,  with  his  hair  on  the  wind,  and  drift  on 
the  waves." 

But  the  impulse  to  self-abandonment  is  a  characteristic 
of  the  yellow  races,  strongly  indicated  in  their  religious 
tendencies.  Their  fatalism,  associated  with  fortitude  in  suf- 
fering and  a  patient  stoicism,  —  alike  in  the  Mongol  and 
American  tribes,  —  is  not  without  its  noble  elements  of  self- 
command,  and  even  heroic  ardor.  The  Chinese  generals 
who  slay  themselves  after  defeat,  the  scholars  whose  fre- 
quent self-destruction  makes  a  tragedy  of  every  great  com- 
petitive examination,  the  officials  who  choose  the  harikiri 
of  the  Japanese,  and  so  escape  the  religiously  dreaded 
calamity  of  decapitation,  —  not  only  obey  a  keen  sense  of 
personal  honor,  but  advance  halfway  to  meet  the  destiny 
which  they  so  thoroughly  accept.  The  Japanese  call  the 
summons  to  harikiri  the  "  Happy  Despatch  ;  "  they  invest 
it  with  ceremonious  politeness  and  respect,  and  refer  it  to 
a  generous  impulse  on  the  part  of  one  who  has  incurred 
disgrace,  to  savefhis  property  to  his  family  and  expiate  his 
fault  in  the  eyes  of  his  sovereign.1 

The  approbation  of  suicide  under  depressing  circum- 
stances in  China  may  be  said  to  amount  to  enthusiasm. 
Pagodas  are  erected  to  the  "beautiful  suicide  of  love."2 
Honorary  tablets  are  frequent  to  widows  who  have  betaken 
themselves  to  their  lost  husbands.  So  fashionable  became 
such  suicides,  that  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century  an 
imperial  edict  forbade  this  public  reward.  The  reader  of 
the  "  Peking  Journal "  will  still  find  petitions  for  these  tab- 
lets, especially  in  behalf  of  daughters  who  are  described  as 
models  of  filial  piety,  for  putting  an  end  to  their  lives  in 

1  Osborne's  Japanese  Fragments  (Lond.  1861),  p.  24.        2  Bowring's  Flowery  Scroll. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  41 

imitation  of  their  mothers.  Even  the  self-immolation  of 
widows  amidst  crowds  of  spectators  still  occurs.1  The  ex- 
planation of  such  a  passion  must  lie  in  the  peculiar  traits 
of  Chinese  character  already  noticed,  brought  into  emergen- 
cies by  a  social  order  so  rigidly  mechanized  as  to  afford  no 
other  relief. 

It  is  mainly,  we  suspect,  in  this  form  that  the  disease 
of  insanity  manifests  itself  in  China,  since  it  is  not  only 
exhibited  in  such  maniacal  habits  as  putting  oneself  to 
death  to  bring  disgrace  upon  others,  but  is  to  be  associated 
with  the  singular  fact  that  actual  insanity  is  hardly  recog- 
nized in  that  country  except  as  an  explanation  of  the  most 
hideous  crimes.  Thus,  by  a  well-known  fiction,  those  who 
are  guilty  of  parricide  are  usually  designated  in  the  "  Peking 
Gazette  "  as  lunatics. 

The  Chinese  are  said  to  suffer  little  from  nervous  irrita- 
tion after  injuries  or  surgical  operations,  and  to  Apparent 
exhibit  much  less  sensitiveness  than  Europeans  ^d^LuTe 
to  affections  of  the  spine.2  It  is  but  just  to  re-  sensibility. 
fer  to  this  constitutional  defect  of  sensibility  many  traits 
which  appear  to  imply  extreme  cruelty.  It  may  help  to 
explain  the  custom  of  treating  rebels  and  banditti  with- 
out mercy,  and  totally  exterminating  the  families  of  those 
guilty  of  treason.3  The  coast  pirates  showed  no  quarter 
to  the  imperial  forces,  and  received  none.4  The  Taiping 
war  was  a  series  of  massacres  and  executions  on  a  pro- 
digious scale.  The  "  Five  Punishments,"  as  laid  down  in 
the  oldest  times,  were  modes  of  beheading,  branding,  and 
mutilating.  A  peculiar  form  of  shoe  is  said  to  have  been 
invented  for  the  use  of  persons  whose  feet  had  been  cut 
off  by  the  law  ;  and  a  proverb  hints  the  frequency  of  the 
punishment  by  saying  that  these  shoes  for  cripples  were 
dear  in  the  market,  when  ordinary  ones  were  cheap.5  The 

1  Hongkong  Daily  Press  for  Jan.  20,  1861.  J  Lay,  p.  225. 

8  Martin,  I.  142.     Meadows,  Chinese  and  their  Rebellions,  p.  454. 

*  Ckine  Ouverte,  p.  104.  6  Plath,  Gesetz  u.  Recht  in  AH.  China  (Bay.  Ak.,  X). 


42  ELEMENTS. 

whole  family  of  the  parricide  was  put  to  de'ath.  Cruelties 
were  invented  by  tyrants  1  that  would  seem  incredible,  were 
we  not  familiar  with  similar  ones  in  the  records  of  sla- 
very and  intolerance  in  the  West.  Instances  are  recorded 
of  burying  servants  alive  with  their  dead  masters  in  large 
numbers  ;  and  this  appears  to  have  been  not  infrequent 
at  some  very  ancient  periods.2  But  the  Liki  says  it  was 
against  Chinese  custom  ;  and  it  will  probably  be  traced 
to  relations  with  the  Tartar  tribes,  who  have  retained  the 
slaughter  of  men  and  women  as  a  burial  ceremony  in  honor 
of  their  Khans,  down  to  recent  times.3  There  are  legends 
of  its  abolition  in  China  through  the  shrewd  proposal  to 
substitute  the  wife  and  children  of  the  prince  for  his  ser- 
vants, as  still  more  necessary  to  his  happiness  in  a  future 
state;  as  also,  of  the  further  substitution  of  figures  in 
straw  and  wood,  and  finally  of  paper  ones,  as  now  burned 
at  funerals.4  Dark  pictures  have  been  drawn  of  cruel- 
ties practised  in  Chinese  prisons  and  by  arbitrary  man- 
darins ;  but  these  do  not  appear  to  be  approved  by  the 
government'  nor  to  be  true  of  penal  administration  in  gen- 
eral, though  punishments  like  the  "  cangue  "  and  squeezing 
the  fingers  are  still  in  vogue.5  Navarete  found  the  prisons 
cleaner  and  more  orderly  than  those  of  Europe.  There  is  a 
custom  of  administering  drugged  wine  to  criminals  before 
execution,  to  diminish  the  pains  of  death.6  It  is  said  that 
the  criminal  has  the  benefit  of  a  moment's  relaxation  of 
the  cord  about  his  neck,  —  a  well-meant  interruption,  to 
enable  the  soul  to  escape  the  body !  It  should  seem  on 
the  whole  that  as  the  older  barbarities  do  not  materially 
differ  from  those  which  appear  in  the  history  of  European 
States,  so  the  later  severities  are  neither  better  nor 

Plath,  Gesetz  u-  Recht  in  Alt.  China  (Bay.  Ak.,  X.). 
Shiking,  I.  xi.  6.  Plath,  Ztsch.  d.  D.  M.  G.,  xx.  480. 
Instances  in  Wuttke,  I.  232.  *  Plath,  pp.  480,  481. 

Williams,  I.  409,  411.     Lockhart's  Medical  Missionary,  ch.  II. 
China  Review,  II.  No.  3. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  43 

worse  than  such  as  have  prevailed  in  the  most  civilized 
countries  down  to  the  present  century.  The  harshness 
of  the  Penal  Code  will  hereafter  be  seen,  to  be  much  mod- 
ified by  humane  provisions, —  such  as  the  commutability 
of  penalties, —  and  the  more  brutal  features  are  practically 
abolished.1  The  present  period  of  civil  wars  and  other 
complications  is  exceptional,  and  affords  no  proper  test  of 
the  spirit  of  Chinese  jurisprudence. 

But  the  vast  and  permanent  civilization  of  China  is 
itself  ample  evidence  of  socially  constructive  and  Human- 
humane  tendencies,  infinitely  more  powerful  than  ities- 
the  barbarism  interwoven  in  the  structure.  I  shall  not 
here  enumerate  the  benignant  precepts  that  crowd  her 
ancient  classics  and  modern  literature  alike,  and  constitute 
the  invariable  norm  of  all  political  and  social  duty.  The 
practical  results  are  as  impressive  as  the  persistent  theory, 
—  such  as  orphan  asylums  in  almost  every  city,  and  fre- 
quently in  villages  ;  societies  for  aid  to  widows  ;  free  day- 
schools  everywhere,  supported  by  the  rich  ;  public  asylums 
for  the  sick,  old,  and  poor,  sustained  by  the  government,  ^- 
and,  as  these  are  apt  to  be  ill-provided,  support  by  the 
clans,  of  their  own  poor ;  a  general  belief  in  the  meritorious- 
ness  of  almsgiving,  and  in  the  inauspiciousness  of  sending 
beggars  away  empty  ;  gratuitous  distribution  of  medicines, 
and  of  books  of  moral  edification.2  Not  less  numerous  are 
societies  for  aiding  indigent  persons  in  paying  marriage 
and  burial  expenses  ;  for  distributing  second-hand  cloth- 
ing ;  for  establishing  granaries  ;  for  building  roads  and 
bridges  to  facilitate  industry  ;  for  saving  drowning  persons, 
and  furnishing  biers  for  the  drowned  ;  for  taking  care  of 
foundlings  and  lepers.3  There  are  no  hospitals  for  the  in- 
sane, for  deaf  mutes,  cripples,  or  the  blind  ;  yet  not  so  many 

1  Williams,  I.  415;  Giles's  Sketches,  p.  136. 
8  Nevius,  pp.  214-225.    Morache,  p.  118. 

8  Doolittle,  II.  193-196.     De  Mas,  I.  273,  274.     Chinese  Repository,  Aug.  1846.    Speer, 
p.  636,  637.     Williams,  II.  282. 


44  ELEMENTS. 

of  these  unfortunates  are  seen  in  Chinese  cities  as  in 
European.  It  is  generally  admitted  that  lunacy  is  ex- 
tremely rare.  Mutual-aid  Associations  have  their  bureaus 
and  halls  in  the  cities  ;  and  in  California  they  not  only  pro- 
vide for  the  poor,  but  send  back  the  sick  and  dead  to  China. 
It  is  common  for  wealthy  people  to  furnish  great  jars  of 
tea  under  canopies,  for  travellers  and  wearied  laborers  ; 
and  especially  on  the  mountain  roads.1  There  is  a  college 
at  Ningpo  to  aid  the  poor  in  getting  educated,  deriving  its 
income  from  lands  and  products,  and  founded  two  hundred 
years  ago.2  Many  reports  from  sanitary  institutions  in 
Chinese  cities  indicate  great  defects  in  their  management 
during  the  present  century:  they  have  suffered  severely 
from  the  agitated  and  depressed  condition  of  the  country ; 
and  the  extreme  pecuniary  distress  of  the  government 
has,  of  course,  caused  its  benevolent  activities  to  fall  into 
decay.3  Yet  in  all  prosperous  times  the  imperial  bounty 
has  flowed  out  in  fixed  channels,  to  relieve  the  miseries 
arising  from  local  floods  or  famines,  and  to  secure  the 
comfort  and  happiness  of  the  people.  The  patriarchal 
theory  makes  it  a  prime  duty  of  the  ruler  to  provide  for 
their  physical  needs,  and  especially  in  the  matter  of  food. 
Hence  granaries  have  been  maintained  from  earliest  times 
on  the  frontiers,  at  the  capital,  and  in  all  the  departments, 
in  which  the  abundance  of  favorable  years  has  been  stored 
up  for  years  of  famine  ;  and  edicts  exhorting  to  private 
benevolence  abound  at  all  periods.  Every  device  for  re- 
lieving the  burden  of  taxation  and  public  service  is  ex- 
hausted in  the  older  legislation,  which  is  extremely  minute 
and  explicit  on  the  duties  of  government  in  times  of  popular 
distress.4  The  family  relation  is  theoretically  expanded 

1  De  Mas,  I.  273,  274.  2  Milne  in  Chinese  Repository,  Jan.  1844. 

8  Girard,  La.  France  en  Chine-,  pp.  170-180  (Paris,  1869).  Williams,  II.  283.  Chinese 
Recorder,  Feb.  1870.  Chinese  Repository,  Jan.  1844.  Lockhart's  Medical  Missionary 
gives  a  very  favorable  account  of  the  native  institutions  in  Shanghai. 

4  Biot's  Tcheouli,  IX.  31-33.     Mencius,  I.  ii.  5. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  45 

even  to  remotest  nations  subject  to  the  emperor  as  their 
common  father.  And  serious  effort  has  always  been  made 
to  carry  out  this  Chinese  analogue  to  the  Western  idea  of 
brotherhood,  into  every  branch  of  public  and  private  con- 
duct. The  universal  good  is  distinctly  proclaimed  as  the 
one  principle  on  which  lands  have  been  apportioned,  occu- 
pations regulated,  crimes  punished,  office  bestowed,  educa- 
tion diffused,  rites  instituted,  manners  prescribed.  In  old 
feudal  China,  the  care  of  the  poor,  of  widows  and  orphans, 
was  specially  commended  by  the  king  to  his  chiefs,  who 
were  expected  to  provide  for  these  classes  by  local  institu- 
tions.1 "  Remember,"  says  the  Shuking,  "  the  proper  end 
of  punishment  is  to  make  an  end  of  punishing."  2  "  Only 
the  good  should  determine  criminal  cases."  3  "  Deal  with 
evil  as  if  it  were  a  disease  in  your  own  person,  and  with 
the  people  as  if  you  were  guarding  your  own  child."  4  "  Bet- 
ter run  the  risk  of  error  than  put  to  death  an  innocent 
person." 6  "  Rewards,  not  punishments,  should  descend 
to  one's  children."6  Principles  like  these,  pervading  the 
classics  that  form  the  basis  of  law,  indicate  at  least  the 
powerful  hold  which  humane  instincts  have  taken  upon 
the  national  mind  and  conscience.  The  Tcheouli 7  pre- 
scribes the  teaching  of  eight  leading  rules  and  nine  ties  of 
mutual  benefit,  as  essential  for  guiding  the  people  and  pre- 
serving them  in  harmony.  The  first  of  the  eight  is  family 
affection  ;  the  second,  reverence  for  age  ;  the  last,  kindness 
to  strangers.8  It  prescribes  also,  as  points  to  be  aimed  at 
by  the  Minister  of  Instruction,  the  diffusion  of  love  for 
the  young,  care  for  the  old,  succor  for  the  distressed  and 
bereaved,  pity  for  the  destitute,  consideration  for  the  sick.9 
All  current  works  of  popular  teaching  are  full  of  a  similar 

Plath,  Verfass.  u.  Verwalt.  d.  Alt.  China  (Abh.  Phil.  d.  Bay.  Akad.,  X). 

Shuking,  P.  V.,  B.  xxi.  9.  »  Ibid.,  B.  xxvii.  ax. 

Ibid.,  B.  ix.  9.  6  P.  II.  B.  n.  12.  «  Ibid. 

An  ancient  code  ;  ascribed  to  the  i2th  century  B.  c.,  but  without  sufficient  authority. 

Biot's  Tcheouli,  B.  n.  »  Ibid,,  IX.  34,  35- 


46  ELEMENTS. 

spirit  ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  odes,  proverbs, 
toy-books,  tales,  most  widely  circulated  in  the  empire. 
The  Penal  Code  itself  opens  with  a  distinction  between 
nominal  and  actual  punishments,  which  leaves  a  wide 
margin  for  humane  administration.  These  are  not  the 
institutions  of  an  inhuman  people. 

Even  the  religion  of  the  Chinese  is  domestic,  and  cen- 
tres in  the  natural  affections.      Like  that  of  the 

Domestic 

affections  Mongolian  races  in  their  whole  extent,  it  consists 
religion.  ma\n\yf  as  js  we^  known>  jn  reverence  for  ancestors  ; 
while  the  forms  in  which  the  cultus  has  been  developed 
by  this  eminently  social  people  are  more  genial  and  bene- 
ficent than  those  which  characterize  the  nomadic  life  of  the 
races  of  Central  and  Western  Asia^  Their  family  gather- 
ings at  the  temples  and  tombs  are  as  pleasant  as  they  are 
pure,  and  probably  as  productive  of  kindly  sentiment  as 
any  religious  festivals  or  social  reunions  in  the  world.  The 
tablets  in  which  the  souls  of  the  departed  are  supposed  to 
dwell  are  a  perpetual  admonition  to  concord  within  fami- 
lies, as  well  as  for  the  millions  who  at  one  and  the  same 
period  of  the  year  are  moved  by  a  common  impulse  to  pay 
devotion  at  these  shrines.  Ancestral  halls  are  often  built 
by  associations  of  families,  and  the  prohibition  of  marriage 
between  persons  of  the  same  name  expands  the  circle  of 
sympathy.  The  relation  constantly  maintained  with  un- 
seen relatives  is  that  of  mutual  care  and  help,  in  minute 
and  tender  superstitions l  whose  influence  reaches  through 
social  life,  and  pervades  it  with  innumerable  delicate  forms 
of  mutual  service.  Among  these,  the  tenderness  required 
of  children  towards  their  parents  is  to  be  mentioned  as  a 
school  of  sympathy.  The  Book  of  Rites  teaches  that  the 
young  should  visit  the  chambers  of  their  parents  in  the 
early  morning,  and  perform  every  possible  service  with 
gentle  looks  and  affectionate  inquiries,  never  failing  in  any 

1  Doolittle,  I.  169,  173,  179,  185. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  47 

attitude  or  gesture  of  respect ;  that  at  meals  and  at  evening 
they  should  observe  similar  rules,  anticipating  every  want 
with  self-forgetful  devotion.1  Even  if  hated,  they  must  not 
be  angry  ;  and,  when  admonished,  never  contend.2  Men- 
cius  declares  that  one's  love  for  his  parents  should  take 
precedence  of  his  love  for  his  country.3  There  are  numer- 
ous significant  ceremonies  and  customs  in  honor  of  mothers, 
and  for  their  benefit,  —  such  as  those  which  celebrate  the 
arrival  of  girls  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  by  a  festival  of  spe- 
cial thanksgiving  ;  and  those  performed  to  save  the  parent 
from  supposed  evils  resulting  from  death  soon  after  child- 
birth.4 In  the  rule  that  makes  one's  virtue  redound  to  the 
honor  of  his  parent,  the  Chinese  have  recognized  the  laws 
of  hereditary  transmission  and  given  motive-force  to  sexual 
purity.  Their  social  ideal  consists  in  disciplines  of  devo- 
tion to  certain  personal  relations,  whose  claims  are  inhe- 
rent.6 These  relations  are  so  defined  as  to  keep  self  in  the 
background,  and  the  thought  of  subordination  and  respect- 
ful regard  constantly  prominent.  Their  prescriptive  for- 
malism must  have  weakened  the  force  of  spontaneity  ;  but 
this  constitutional  propensity  to  work  by  fixed  rules  and 
in  prescribed  channels,  while  it  represses  the  freedom  of 
humane  instincts,  at  the  same  time,  after  a  Chinese  man- 
ner, permanently  organizes  and  applies  them.  The  very 
games  of  the  populace  are  of  a  comparatively  refined  and 
delicate  nature,  and  never  approach  nearer  the  coarse  and 
brutal  spectacles  of  Western  races  than  in  matches  of  crick- 
ets or  quails.  The  same  ideal  refinement  is  apparent  in  the 
special  industries  to  which  the  people  are  devoted. 

Their  peculiar  passiveness  must  appear  in  the  tone  of  all 
forms  and  institutions  of  benevolence,  not  less  than  Defoctof 
in   other  products  of  the  national  character.     This   motive 
heart  worships  a  fulfilled  ideal.    It  entertains  no  im-  p°* 

1  Liki,  XII.  *  Ibid.,  XXXV.  »  Mencius,  VII.  i.  35. 

*  Doolittle,  I.  196,  197.  °  Siaohiao,  ch.  ii. 


48  ELEMENTS. 

pulse  to  radical  changes,  and  is  defective  in  motive-power  to 
meet  great  public  calamities  with  salutary  precautions  and 
improvements  for  the  future.  Chinese  humanity  amelior- 
ates, but  does  not  reconstruct.  With  its  abounding  charities, 
it  does  not  establish  reformatory  prisons,  nor  institute  meth- 
ods of  restoring  the  degraded  to  social  opportunity  and 
diminishing  the  extent  of  beggary.  It  has  an  apathetic 
and  languid  air,  and  does  not  rise  to  enthusiasm  ;  which 
perhaps  we  have  no  right  to  expect  anywhere  in  Chinese 
life.  More  than  any  thing  else,  it  must  suffer  from  the  end- 
less pedagogy  of  moral  precept,  and  from  those  assumptions 
of  attained  wisdom  and  of  the  all-sufficiency  of  words, 
which  are  to  no  small  extent  involved  therein.  Still,  Chi- 
nese humanity  is  genuine  ;  and  we  cannot  ignore  its  im- 
mense influence  in  maintaining  this  vast  productive  and 
coherent  civilization.  We  must  judge  it  by  its  fitness  to 
meet  the  wants  of  that  temperament  to  which  it  belongs ; 
and  may  well  ask  whether  it  has  not  on  the  whole  secured 
to  China  a  social  order  as  favorable  to  personal  happiness 
and  mutual  service  as  any  Western  civilization  has  been, 
down  to  our  very  recent  and  still  most  immature  epoch  of 
scientific  discovery.  Nor  must  the  lack  of  reconstructive 
tendencies  be  too  strongly  stated.  More  than  twenty  dy- 
nastic revolutions ;  two  great  intellectual  revivals,  one 
after  the  destruction  of  literature  by  the  T'sin,  and  another 
when  the  invention  of  printing  had  prepared  the  way  for 
the  literary  glories  of  the  second  Sung  ;  a  total  change  in 
the  land  tenure  and  relation  of  the  States  to  the  central 
government,  since  early  times  ;  the  Taiping  revolution,  in- 
volving striking  religious  and  social  changes  ;  and,  finally, 
the  readiness  of  the  people  to  profit  by  their  recent  lessons 
in  war,  and  to  accept  European  cultures  and  arts,  —  afford 
no  slight  guarantees  for  the  adoption  of  reformatory  meth- 
ods in  dealing  with  social  vices  also,  and  for  a  more  effec- 
tive system  of  public  benevolence. 


THE  "CHINESE    MIND.  49 

The  "  immobility "  of  the  Chinese  type  is,  in  fact, 
counterbalanced  by  a  peculiar  alacrity,  within  its  social  ac- 
limits  and  conditions,  of  the  social  sentiments  and  tmtyb*f- 

ances  this 

attractions.  Those  lethargic,  almost  melancholic,  inertia, 
features  veil  a  lively  sense  of  humor  and  a  genial  tone  of 
feeling.  With  all  their  plodding  and  routine,  these  people 
are  fond  of  festivals  and  merry-makings  ;  and,  when  they 
break  away  from  task-work,  their  hilarity  is  unbounded. 
They  delight  in  bright  colors,  gay  processions,  social  re- 
unions, garrulous  gossip,  friendly  discussion ;  in  clubs  and 
associations ;  in  good-natured  games  of  chance  and  the 
pleasant  excitement  of  divination  and  fortune-telling.  They 
elaborate  their  taste  for  ornamental  work  in  writing,  paint- 
ing, horticulture,  and  the  domestic  arts,  with  a  minuteness 
which  is  the  surest  sign  of  the  enjoyment  they  find  in  it. 
Their  passion  for  burlesque  was  notably  shown  in  the  cari- 
catures of  Europeans  by  travelling  actors  at  Macao  in  the 
time  of  Ricci,1  and  in  the  placards  posted  on  walls  during 
the  late  wars.  That  curious  mixture  of  crudeness  with 
luxury,  of  the  silken  robe  with  the  rude  bamboo  stage,  of 
strutting  heroes  with  men  on  all-fours  in  painted  frames, — 
which  serves  them  for  dramatic  entertainment,  —  is  at  least 
a  popular  enthusiasm.  Itinerant  comedians  are  hired  by 
the  rich  for  pleasant  domestic  occasions,  and  street  crowds 
will  endure  all  weathers  for  days,  while  watching  the 
progress  of  these  rude  shows.2  The  feast  is  cheered,  like 
the  Greek,  with  music  ;  like  the  Saxon,  with  toasts  and 
compliments  :  and  the  tea-house  with  lecturing  and  story- 
telling. Chinese  religion  is  too  genial  to  disdain  the 
comic  ;  and  plays  are  frequently  performed  in  the  courts 
of  temples.3  Dances  were  prescribed  in  the  Tcheouli  as 
part  of  the  religious  service,  varying  with  the  occasion,  and 
accompanied  by  corresponding  styles  of  music.4  There  are 

1  Hue,  Christianity  in  China,  II.  150.        *  De  Mas,  I.  94 ;  Knox,  Overland  to  Asia. 
»  De  $las,  I.  93.  «  Tcheouli,  XXII. 

4 


48  ELEMENTS. 

pulse  to  radical  changes,  and  is  defective  in  motive-power  to 
meet  great  public  calamities  with  salutary  precautions  and 
improvements  for  the  future.  Chinese  humanity  amelior- 
ates, but  does  not  reconstruct.  With  its  abounding  charities, 
it  does  not  establish  reformatory  prisons,  nor  institute  meth- 
ods of  restoring  the  degraded  to  social  opportunity  and 
diminishing  the  extent  of  beggary.  It  has  an  apathetic 
and  languid  air,  and  does  not  rise  to  enthusiasm  ;  which 
perhaps  we  have  no  right  to  expect  anywhere  in  Chinese 
life.  More  than  any  thing  else,  it  must  suffer  from  the  end- 
less pedagogy  of  moral  precept,  and  from  those  assumptions 
of  attained  wisdom  and  of  the  all-sufficiency  of  words, 
which  are  to  no  small  extent  involved  therein.  Still,  Chi- 
nese humanity  is  genuine ;  and  we  cannot  ignore  its  im- 
mense influence  in  maintaining  this  vast  productive  and 
coherent  civilization.  We  must  judge  it  by  its  fitness  to 
meet  the  wants  of  that  temperament  to  which  it  belongs ; 
and  may  well  ask  whether  it  has  not  on  the  whole  secured 
to  China  a  social  order  as  favorable  to  personal  happiness 
and  mutual  service  as  any  Western  civilization  has  been, 
down  to  our  very  recent  and  still  most  immature  epoch  of 
scientific  discovery.  Nor  must  the  lack  of  reconstructive 
tendencies  be  too  strongly  stated.  More  than  twenty  dy- 
nastic revolutions ;  two  great  intellectual  revivals,  one 
after  the  destruction  of  literature  by  the  T'sin,  and  another 
when  the  invention  of  printing  had  prepared  the  way  for 
the  literary  glories  of  the  second  Sung  ;  a  total  change  in 
the  land  tenure  and  relation  of  the  States  to  the  central 
government,  since  early  times  ;  the  Taiping  revolution,  in- 
volving striking  religious  and  social  changes  ;  and,  finally, 
the  readiness  of  the  people  to  profit  by  their  recent  lessons 
in  war,  and  to  accept  European  cultures  and  arts,  —  afford 
no  slight  guarantees  for  the  adoption  of  reformatory  meth- 
ods in  dealing  with  social  vices  also,  and  for  a  more  effec- 
tive system  of  public  benevolence. 


THE  "CHINESE    MIND.  49 

The  "  immobility "  of  the  Chinese  type  is,  in  fact, 
counterbalanced  by  a  peculiar  alacrity,  within  its  sodaiao- 
limits  and  conditions,  of  the  social  sentiments  and  tmtyb^f- 

ances  this 

attractions.  Those  lethargic,  almost  melancholic,  inertia, 
features  veil  a  lively  sense  of  humor  and  a  genial  tone  of 
feeling.  With  all  their  plodding  and  routine,  these  people 
are  foid  of  festivals  and  merry-makings  ;  and,  when  they 
break  away  from  task-work,  their  hilarity  is  unbounded. 
They  delight  in  bright  colors,  gay  processions,  social  re- 
unions, garrulous  gossip,  friendly  discussion  ;  in  clubs  and 
associations ;  in  good-natured  games  of  chance  and  the 
pleasant  excitement  of  divination  and  fortune-telling.  They 
elaborate  their  taste  for  ornamental  work  in  writing,  paint- 
ing, horticulture,  and  the  domestic  arts,  with  a  minuteness 
which  is  the  surest  sign  of  the  enjoyment  they  find  in  it. 
Their  passion  for  burlesque  was  notably  shown  in  the  cari- 
catures of  Europeans  by  travelling  actors  at  Macao  in  the 
time  of  Ricci,1  and  in  the  placards  posted  on  walls  during 
the  late  wars.  That  curious  mixture  of  crudeness  with 
luxury,  of  the  silken  robe  with  the  rude  bamboo  stage,  of 
strutting  heroes  with  men  on  all-fours  in  painted  frames,  — 
which  serves  them  for  dramatic  entertainment,  —  is  at  least 
a  popular  enthusiasm.  Itinerant  comedians  are  hired  by 
the  rich  for  pleasant  domestic  occasions,  and  street  crowds 
will  endure  all  weathers  for  days,  while  watching  the 
progress  of  these  rude  shows.2  The  feast  is  cheered,  like 
the  Greek,  with  music  ;  like  the  Saxon,  with  toasts  and 
compliments  :  and  the  tea-house  with  lecturing  and  story- 
telling. Chinese  religion  is  too  genial  to  disdain  the 
comic  ;  and  plays  are  frequently  performed  in  the  courts 
of  temples.3  Dances  were  prescribed  in  the  Tcheouli  as 
part  of  the  religious  service,  varying  with  the  occasion,  and 
accompanied  by  corresponding  styles  of  music.4  There  are 

1  Hue,  Christianity  in  China,  II.  150.         *  De  Mas,  I.  94;  Knox,  Overland  to  Asia. 
»  De  Mas,  I.  93.  *  Tcheouli,  XXII. 

4 


50  ELEMENTS. 

five  great  Festivals,  all  of  a  social  and  joyous  character. 
The  Festi-  One  greets  the  new  year  with  ten  whole  days  or 
vais.  more  of  mutual  congratulations  and  exchange  of 
gifts,  good  wishes,  and  respects.  Another  welcomes  spring 
with  jocund  processions  and  official  breaking  of  the  ground, 
when  the  farmer  feels  common  interests  and  hopes  with 
the  emperor  and  the  nation.  A  third  rejoices  for  fifteen 
days  over  the  harvest ;  and  the  people,  male  and  female, 
crowd  the  theatres,  bent  on  amusement  from  phantasma- 
gorias, cosmoramas,  and  other  light  and  merry  shows.  A 
fourth  sets  the  land  ablaze  with  lanterns  of  every  size,  hue, 
shape,  and  adornment,  and  vexes  the  air  with  a  rain  of  fire 
in  pure  love  of  jollity,  —  nominally,  in  honor  of  the  first  full 
moon  of  the  year  ;  really,  a  feast  of  homes.  And  a  fifth,  in 
early  April,  brings  all  with  one  accord  to  honor  the  tombs 
of  their  ancestors,  and  deck  their  tablets  with  willow  boughs, 
in  token  at  once  of  unseen  guardianship  and  of  a  historic 
deliverance  from  great  peril  in  the  old  time.1  Then  there 
are  feasts  of  birthdays,  and  of  old  age,  and  of  dragon-boats 
for  children,  and  of  ornamented  eggs,  and  for  congratulating 
the  emperor  at  the  winter  solstice  as  their  earthly  sun,  and 
on  numerous  other  occasions  and  emergencies,  —  sprink- 
ling the  works  and  days  with  shining  spaces.  Marco  Polo 
describes  their  salutations  as  made  with  cheerful  counte- 
nances and  great  politeness  ; 2  and  modern  observers  note 
the  easiness  of  their  good  breeding,  and  the  ready  way  in 
which  ceremonious  forms  are  thrown  aside.3  Even  the 
materialism  of  religious  rites  is  genial,  setting  out  tables 
for  the  dead,  feasting  these  gods,  transforming  tombs  into 
dwellings,  and  coffins  into  domestic  gifts  and  treasures; 
and  treating  death  as  a  mere  transference  of  the  friend 
into  closer  dependence  on  the  affection  and  respect  of 
those  who  remain  in  the  light  of  day. 

1  Doolittle,  II.  50.  2  II.  xxvi. 

3  Williams,  11.69.  • 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  51 

But  this  vivacity  of  the  social  sentiments  is  not  the  only 

counterpoise  to  a  constitutional    passiveness  and  Other 

counter- 
immobility.     Nature  has  her  revenge  on  all  repres-  poise  to 

sion  of  human  faculty,  and  will  not  be  cheated  of  1"erUa'. 

* '  Natural 

her  balance  by  temperament  or  by  laws.  Some  reactions, 
semblance  of  growth  man  must  have.  If  free  development 
be  checked,  he  will  caricature  change  by  grotesque  and 
petty  artifices.  The  Chinese  protect  themselves  against 
monotony  by  out-of-the-way  devices  in  doing  common 
things.  The  passion  for  whimsical  variations,  within  the 
limits  allowed  by  prescription,  really  measures  their  en- 
deavor to  escape  rigid  mechanism  and  close  confinement  of 
the  ideal.  Europeans  are  fond  of  illustrating  this  passion 
by  the  oddity  of  a  Chinese  book,  —  printed  on  one  side  of 
the  leaf  only,  and  in  perpendicular  lines  ;  titled  on  the 
edges  of  the  leaves,  and  opening  at  the  back  ;  marginal 
notes  at  the  top  of  the  page ;  table  of  contents  at  the  end 
of  the  chapter  ;  binder's  thread  outside  the  cover  ;  every  de- 
tail directly  opposite  to  what  they  have  come  to  regard  as 
most  natural  and  becoming.  But  these  peculiarities  really 
have  their  source  in  special  requirements  in  the  material 
used  and  the  end  proposed.  Like  the  choice  of  white  as 
color  of  mourning,  or  wearing  the  hat  as  mark  of  respect, 
they  simply  indicate  difference  of  taste  on  matters  more  or 
less  arbitrary.  More  to  the  purpose  are  the  fantastic  forms 
devised  with  endless  ingenuity  for  their  flags,  pagodas,  and 
lanterns ;  and  their  application  to  horticulture  and  kindred 
arts  of  the  principle  of  altering  Nature  at  every  point. 
"  Where  there  is  a  waste  they  cover  it  with  trees  ;  a  dry 
desert,  they  water  it  with  a  river  or  float  it  with  a  lake  ;  a 
level,  they  raise  it  into  hillocks,  or  scoop  it  into  hollows,  or 
roughen  it  with  rocks."  l  They  make  Chinamen  of  trees, 
dwarfing  them  with  such  art  that  they  seem  hoary  with 
age  though  only  a  few  inches  high,  and  distorting  them 

1  Lord  Macartney's  Journal. 


52  ELEMENTS. 

into  strange  imitations  of  traditional  animals  and  men.1 
They  twist  flowers  into  monstrosities  ;  and  plant  bulbs 
upside  down.  They  confine  the  circulation  of  sap,  and 
divert  it  into  paths  it  would  not  choose.  They  have  learned 
to  prick  oysters  with  needles  to  obtain  the  diseased  deposit 
of  pearl ; 2  to  compress  the  cormorant's  throat  that  he  may 
not  swallow  the  fish  he  catches  for  man  ;  to  cramp  women's 
feet ;  to  plunge  into  gambling  to  escape  ennui  and  make 
up  for  want  of  athletic  games.  They  weave  pictures  into 
their  clothing,  and  used  to  go  covered  with  emblematic  fig- 
ures of  sun,  moon,  and  elements ;  of  birds,  beasts,  snakes. 
They  delight  in  exaggerated  and  misshapen  forms  in  art ; 
and  in  manners  avoid  direct  address,  and  heap  up  formal 
repetitions.  The  Chinese  proverb  puts  "novelty  in  the 
garment"  against  "antiquity  in  the  man."  A  study  of  the 
older  prints  will  show  that,  in  such  matters  as  dress,  great 
changes  have  occurred  in  the  course  of  ages :  a  progress 
even  towards  simplicity  and  purity  of  taste  has  been  se- 
cured by  these  minute  variations.3  The  measured  pace 
and  imposing  air,  once  believed  a  sign  of  worth,  has  disap- 
peared. So  has  the  extreme  minuteness  of  legislation  in 
matters  of  food  and  dress  and  structure  of  houses,  that  we 
find  in  the  old  law-books,4  and  much  room  is  left  for  indi- 
vidual tastes  and  caprices. 

The  Christian  monks  of  the  Thebaid,  renouncing  every 
luxury,  became  extreme  ascetics  ;  and  then  copied  their 
Bibles  in  purple  and  gold  letters,  and  invented  the  most 
imaginative  border-ornamentations.  Thus,  in  one  way  or 
another,  Nature  protests  against  systematic  constraint, 
enforced  routine,  conformity  to  systems  of  prescription  ; 
against  uniformity  of  method  and  aim.  The  Chinese 
garden  is  symbolical.  Bind  a  capacity  from  shooting  freely 
upwards,  it  will  work  out  sideways  ;  awkwardly  and  absurdly 

1  Fortune,  Wanderings,  p.  83.  2  Montfort,  Voyage  en  Chine,  p.  210. 

s  Tcheouli.    Plath,  Bay.  Ak.  XI.  *  Ibid. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  53 

enough,  yet  as  it  can.  Open  no  great  paths  of  progress  to 
walk  in,  yet  there  must  be  exercise,  and  men  will  invent  odd 
postures  and  movements  within  the  space  left  them.  Man 
cannot  be  wholly  deprived  of  the  instinct  of  growth.  And 
like  as  young  impetuous  America,  so  inert  custom-ridden 
China,  dwells,  like  the  nomad,  in  the  fluttering  tents  of 
change. 

Here  are  Saturn  and  Mercury  in  one  :  the  fixed  and 
the  fugitive,  tradition  and  transition,  curiously  Passion 
combined.  Such  conjunction  of  adhesiveness  for  traffic, 
with  social  susceptibility  naturally  results  in  a  peculiar 
talent  for  transacting  business.  "  In  China  every  thing  is 
matter  of  trade,  every  thing  for  sale  to  the  highest  bidder."  1 
These  natural  shopmen  surpass  most  races  in  shrewdness 
and  diplomacy,  and  the  finesse  of  traffic.  They  are  sharp 
observers  of  character ;  however  heavy  and  indifferent  they 
may  appear,  they  show  no  lack  of  knowledge  in  their  esti- 
mates of  those  with  whom  they  have  to  deal.  "  They  easily 
undo  by  stratagem  what  the  European  powers  force  them 
to  concede  at  the  cannon's  mouth."  2  They  have  a  passion 
for  statistics,  as  for  all  minute  details  ;  and,  for  all  matters 
within  the  scope  of  their  trades  and  interests,  their  itiner- 
aries furnish  close  and  complete  descriptions  of  the  eigh- 
teen great  provinces  of  China.3  Not  less  strong  is  their 
love  of  calculating  chances,  of  combining  numbers  :  the 
mysteries  of  banking  and  insurance  are  familiar  to  them. 
In  all  the  great  cities  the  former  function  is  fulfilled  by 
respectable  merchants,  who  afford  facilities  for  commerce, 
payment  of  taxes,  and  the  administration  of  the  State.4 
Mercantile  credit  is  everywhere  sustained  by  mutual  in- 
surance companies,  by  which  aid  is  given  in  business  diffi- 
culties.5 So  universal  are  mutual-loan  societies,  that,  out 

1  Courcy,  p.  470.  *  Speer's  China,  p.  655. 

3  Chinese  Repository,  March,  1842.  *  Courcy,  p.  472. 

6  La  Chine  Ouverte,  p.    166.      In  this  direction   they  greatly  surpass   the   more    ardent 
and  impetuous  Japanese,  who  have  always  placed  the  merchant  low  in  the  social  scale  (Smith's 


56  ELEMENTS. 

immutable  order,  the  firm-set  granite  of  the  ages  ;  which 
is  constant  in  temperament,  instinct,  ideal ;  enforces  itself 
as  public  opinion,  sways  emperors  and  people  alike.  And 
this  rests,  as  he  believes,  on  nothing  else  than  the  order 
of  Nature, — the  inherent  harmony  of  the  universe  with 
man.  It  is  not  arbitrary,  nor  transitional ;  but  cosmical 
and  eternal :  so  conservative  is  the  setting  of  all  this 
passion  for  contrast,  transference,  and  interchangeable 
detail ;  so  loyal  in  essence  this  love  of  license  in  petty 
change.  Politics  were  never  separate  in  China  from  this 
higher  law ;  they  were  from  the  beginning  its  concrete 
form  :  as  if  Nature  repeated  her  successions,  alternations, 
seasons,  polarities,  in  human  institutions  which  could  have 
no  other  basis,  and  follow  no  other  track.  Here  then,  in 
man,  we  have  a  piece  of  the  sun  and  moon,  of  the  orbits 
and  the  elemental  laws. 

In  such  conservatism  we  may  be  sure  that  nothing  is 
Conserva-  suffered  to  be  lost.  All  this  ephemeral  flutter  of 
Nothing  unrest,  this  destructiveness  of  lives,  this  mobility 
lost.  of  aims,  is  but  an  inner  molecular  movement  with- 
out substantial  change.  This  dissolving  glare  of  lan- 
terns, rockets,  and  burnt  paper  marks  not  the  loss  but  the 
transmutation  of  forms.  The  spirit  of  economy  overrides 
the  whole,  and  its  chemistry  is  amazing.  All  soils  and 
substances  utilized,  all  droppings  gleaned  up,  all  decay 
made  tributary  to  growth  ;  no  written  word  suffered  to 
perish  ;  the  whole  literature  of  the  past  forced  to  survival, 
again  and  again  restored,  as  nearly  as  possible,  'after  de- 
structive fires  ;  every  pretension  to  antiquity  heard,  com- 
mented, sifted  ;  the  records  of  ages  reproduced,  if  not  in 
fact,  at  least  in  faith,  reviving,  phoenix-like,  in  some  form 
from  the  ashes ;  all  breaks  in  continuity  closed.  An  Old 
Mortality  who  never  dies,  China  spends  microscopic  labors 
on  renovating  her  inscriptions  of  belief  and  conduct,  words 
and  deeds  ;  turning  them  over  again  and  again,  as  her 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  57 

farmers  turn  the  clods  of  a  land  already  full  of  graves.  A 
scientific  faith  will  trust  progress  as  inherent  in  that  dy- 
namic law,  which  preserves  the  phases  only  in  their  results  ; 
but  this  careful,  anxious  economy  of  conservative  China 
must  gather  up  every  minute  detail,  and  make  the  most  of 
it  as  of  a  child  that  cannot  go  alone. 

But  there  is  no  melancholy  in  this  secular  life  of  the 
miner,  apparently  in  the  dark  and  among  the  dead,  cheer- 
As  the  shadows  in  which  he  shrouds  his  ancestors  fulness- 
do  not  sadden  his  ancestral  feasts,  so  there  is  for  him  no 
element  of  gloom  or  decay  in  these  tracks  of  the  old  wis- 
dom of  precept  and  institution,  in  which  he  is  for  ever  plod- 
ding. He  is  not  bent  like  a  grim  theologian  over  his  medi- 
aeval creed  ;  he  is  erect  and  cheerful,  and  genial  in  his  toil. 
For  the  past  and  the  present  do  not  need  to  be  joined  by 
painful  straining  to  span  a  chasm,  while  one  picks  at  its 
gulf ;  since  all  the  ages  are  continuous  with  the  undoubted 
validity  of  the  same  set  of  truths.  But  he  lacks  the  im- 
agination that  would  traverse  these  vast  spaces  of  historic 
time  with  a  sense  of  awe,  and  ponder  over  their  mysteries 
of  human  experience.  His  strongest  emotion  is  a  plain- 
tive and  patient  wonder  at  the  transiency  of  things.  This 
unfailing  Methuselah,  to  whom  a  thousand  years  are  as  a 
day,  wrinkled  and  hoary  as  he  seems  at  first  sight,  senti- 
mentalizes like  Horace  on 'the  swiftness  of  time.  His 
earnestness  has  its  focus  in  the  moments  ;  he  is  utilitarian 
and  acquisitive,  and  holds  fast  every  shred  of  their  gift. 
His  art  in  making  the  best  of  failure,  and  carrying  off 
defeat  as  if  it  were  victory,  is  sublime.  It  is  said  that  the 
emperor  indemnifies  his  dignity  for  the  refusal  of  certain 
invincible  tribes  of  the  west  to  accept  his  government,  by 
conferring  the  title  of  imperial  official  upon  the  chiefs 
whom  they  have  elected.  A  high  officer,  refusing  a  pass- 
port for  Peking  to  a  friend  of  Mr.  Lay,  the  English  consul, 


5  ELEMENTS. 

and  being  informed  that  he  would  then  proceed  thither 
without  one,  at  once  replied :  "  I  do  not  choose  that  this 
foreigner  should  be  guilty  of  breaking  the  laws.  Here  is 
the  passport."  1 

It  would  not  be  strange  if  the  very  coil  of  these  rigid 
Causes  of  wires  °f  tmie  anc^  fate  around  him  should  pinch 
shy,  sharp  his  sharp  wit  to  that  subtlety  and  petty  craft  with 
which  he  is  credited,  by  races  probably  not  less 
gifted  in  this  line.  Adroit  management  doubtless  does 
something  to  offset  the  constraint  of  routines  that  cheat 
his  powers  of  their  natural  play.  But  it  is  late  in  the  day 
to  bring  special  grounds  in  Chinese  human  nature  to 
account  for  faults  which,  whether  truly  or  falsely  charged 
upon  it,  the  Anglo-American  conscience,  at  least,  must 
blush  to  refer  to  heathen  blindness  or  inferiority  of  race. 
Thus  it  is  charged  with  a  sharp  practice,  a  want  of  integrity, 
which  is  said  to  have  defeated  every  attempt  to  carry  out 
laws  against  opium  or  gambling  ;  and  with  special  pro- 
pensity to  act  from  interested  motives,  and  to  turn  high 
moral  ideals  into  incentives  to  the  love  of  gain.  We  may 
be  permitted  to  doubt  whether  this  habit,  however  con- 
spicuously it  may  appear  in  the  schoolboy  competition 
that  forms  so  large  an  element  in  their  educational  and 
political  methods,  really  exceeds  similar  faults  arising  in 
Western  races  from  quite  different  causes.  Chinese  policy 
does  not  suffer  by  comparison  with  the  morality  of  Paley 
and  "  Poor  Richard ;  "  nor  Chinese  exploitation  of  noble 
maxims  with  the  egotistic  pretension  to  official  rewards 
for  party  services,  with  which  we  are  more  familiar,  or  with 
our  neglect  of  natural  disciplines  and  right  subordinations 
for  lofty  phrases  about  patriotism  and  public  duty.  Proba- 
bly the  celestial  appeal  also  is  extremely  apt  to  be  made 
to  terrestrial  motives,  and  the  idea  of  right  to  revolve  about 
the  poles  of  covenant  or  bargain. 

1  Hiibner,  p.  475. 


!     ,      V'y      ^ 

THE    CHINESE    MIND.  *l  /  ''V$Q 

''/", 

This  love  of  gain  is  to  be  distinguished  from 
thirst  for  monopoly  and  accumulation.  The  habit 
of  the  Chinese  is  not  so  much  to  heap,  as  to  dif- 
fuse, the  materials  of  comfort.  As  a  people  they  gam.  sim- 
are  not  luxurious,  and  the  life  of  the  masses  is  tphriftyd 
remarkably  simple.  The  women  are  less  given  to  habits- 
ornamentation  than  in  any  other  Asiatic  race  except  the 
Japanese.  The  laborer  subsists  on  small  means,  sweetened 
by  industry.  Clothing,  house,  and  food  cost  but  little. 
For  a  few  "  cash  "  he  dines  sumptuously,  even  in  the  city. 
The  greater  part  of  the  country  population  in  northern 
China  have  their  little  houses  and  farms,  which  support 
them  with  content.1  With  its  floor  of  earth,  paper  windows, 
plain  cooking  utensils,  and  small  brick  range  that  serves 
for  fire-place  and  bed,  "  the  house  keeps  itself ;  "  2  though, 
it  must  be  allowed,  with  not  so  much  regard  as  might  be 
for  sanitary  laws.  Fortune,  in  describing  this  country  sim- 
plicity and  want  of  healthful  conveniences,  says  "  there  is 
no  people  so  contented  and  happy  ;  none  in  which  there 
is  so  little  of  real  misery  and  want."  '6  With  all  the  brill- 
iancy of  such  centres  of  art  and  wealth  as  Canton  or 
Hangchow,  the  national  ideal  of  dress  and  living  is  frugality 
and  self-restraint.  This  is  constantly  urged  by  the  Board 
of  Rites,  who  determine  the  fashions,  but  is  conformed  to 
by  the  people  as  part  of  the  unwritten  natural  law.4  The 
wise  men  of  the  Confucian  and  Mencian  books  are  Stoics, 
or  even  Cynics.  "  How  admirable  was  Hwuy  !  with  a  single 
dish  of  rice,  a  single  gourd  of  drink,  and  living  in  a  narrow 
lane,  what  others  could  not  have  endured  did  not  disturb 
his  joy."  "  Shun  [afterwards  emperor]  ate  his  parched 
grains  as  if  he  expected  nothing  better  his  life  through." 
"A  scholar  whose  mind  is  set  on  truth,  and  who  is 
ashamed  of  poor  clothes  or  food,  is  not  worthy  to  be 

1  Fortune,  Wanderings,  pp.  190,  191.  8  Notes  and  Queries,  July  1868. 

8  Fortune,  Wanderings,  pp.  68,  190.  *  Mikado's  Empire. 


6O  ELEMENTS. 

conversed  with."  "The  wise  man,"  says  the  Shu-king, 
"  understands  the  painful  toil  of  sowing  and  reaping,  and 
how  it  conducts  to  ease."  The  Chinese  in  California  are 
allowed  to  be  an  admirable  illustration  of  such  maxims  as 
these.  Their  sturdy  labor,  apt  for  every  kind  of  service, 
—  quiet,  orderly,  temperate,  persevering,  unambitious  of 
future  indolence, — already  lends  such  aid  to  American 
enterprise  and  morality  as  well  compares  with  that  of  any 
other  class  of  immigrants.  "  They  glean  after  the  whites 
in  the  gold-fields  ;  they  are  content  with  small  returns  ; " 
they  love  work  too  well  not  to  be  satisfied  to  work  for  such 
wages  as  they  can  command.1  In  Japan,  they  are  the 
most  industrious  nationality.  Tastes  in  food,  as  well  as 
in  dress,  are  regulated  in  China  by  rules  believed  to  be 
rooted  in  Nature.  The  Liki  shows  that  they  must  be  har- 
monized with  the  seasons  :  the  five  elements  are  related 
to  the  five  colors,  and  these  with  the  five  sorts  of  taste. 
Manner  and  form  of  eating  are  laid  down  for  the  rich, 
and  the  royal  institutes  of  cookery  and  diet  given  in  the 
Tcheouli  with  crushing  minuteness.  At  the  ancient  feasts, 
where  drinking  was  common,  the  rules  provided  for  small 
goblets  to  prevent  excess,  and  multitudes  of  gestuies 
intervened  between  the  draughts.  Rules  for  self-regula- 
tion and  restraint,  that  seem  to  have  grown  up  out  of  the 
national  tastes,  were  spontaneously  prescribed  and  applied 
in  profusion  to  every  pleasure  and  task.  And  we  find  in 
this  fact  some  explanation  of  the  very  high,  and  in  many 
respects  unsurpassed,  attainment  of  the  Chinese  in  the 
arts  and  amenities  of  domestic  life. 

To  these  helpful  elements  we  must  add  the  affirmative 
spirit  which  leads  them  to  accept  and  imitate  whatever 
they  see  to  be  of  use,  with  rare  aptness  and  fidelity.  There 
is  much  error  current  on  this  point  in  their  character,  and 
abundant  testimony  to  refute  it.  "The  Chinese  laborer," 

1    Bowles,  Across  the  Continent;  Speer,  p.  526;  Pumpelly,  p.  252. 


THE    CHINESE    MIND.  6l 

says  Morache,  "  does  not  look  with  indifference  on  things  : 
talks  much ;  tries  to  instruct  himself ;  has  not  the  pride 
which  hides  ignorance,  like  the  literati."  1     It  will  be  seen 
in  our  account  of  their  industrial  arts,  and  of  the  history 
of   their   commercial  relations  with  the  West,  that  even 
their  wonderful    skill   in   manipulation   has  not  surpassed 
the  interest  which  they  have  shown  in  greeting  the  achieve- 
ments of  other  nations,  and,  after  their  own  way,  in  profit 
ing  thereby. 
i 

Such  the  active  qualities  of  persevering  cheerful  indus- 
try, of  social  constructiveness,  competitive  ardor,  summary 
economic  method,  and  assimilative  power,  that  oftraits 

and  ten- 

eminently  fit  the  Chinese  to  enter  into  the  spirit  dencies. 
of  the  present  age,  and  to  work  in  its  paths  as  a  ^e^°"ra 
twofold  force  of  moral  conservatism  and  industrial  needs. 
progress.  Not  less  do  they  serve  to  warn  us  by  the 
stunted  state  of  their  imagination  and  ideal  faculty,  by  the 
lack  of  free  individuality  and  original  force,  of  the  dangers 
of  mechanism  and  uniformity  in  culture.  And  this  is 
timely  service,  in  view  of  many  similar  educational  ten- 
dencies that  begin  to  flow  already  in  America  from  the 
jealous  assertion  of  a  universal  equality  of  minds,  and  of 
every  one's  capacity  for  all  functions  ;  an  unlimited  power 
being  expected  from  prescribed  methods  and  the  machinery 
of  drill.  Many  prejudices  will  be  removed,  and  wider  con- 
ceptions of  the  unity  of  races  will  prevail,  when  our  grow- 
ing acquaintance  with  this  great  people  shall  bring  us  to 
do  justice  to  their  democratic  instincts  and  affinities,  to 
their  local  liberties,  to  their  universal  aim  in  education, 
and  to  that  grand  theory  of  office  as  a  function  of  knowl- 
edge and  virtue,  which  they  have  so'  persistently  striven  to 
embody  with  more  or  less  success,  while  free  America,  by 
general  confession,  has  of  late  most  perilously  thrown  it 
aside. 

1  Morache,  p.  82. 


II. 

LABOR. 


LABOR. 


HPHE  Chinese  must  be  judged,  not  by  what  they  have 
thought,  but  by  what  they  have  done.    Their 

,  Religion 

speculative  performance  cannot  be  seen  apart  from  of  the  chi- 
their  practical,  nor  understood  till  this  has  been  meas-  nts*:.*°  !* 

studied  in 

ured.  For  them  the  ideal  means  a  concrete  fact,  a  their  visi- 
positive  product.  Their  religion,  technically  a  wor-  b 
ship  of  spirits  and  elements,  is  really  a  worship  of  uses 
achieved,  of  relations  fulfilled.  We  must  approach  the  study 
of  their  philosophy  and  faith  through  the  visible  civilization 
in  which  they  have  embodied  their  qualities,  so  as  to  test 
whether  they  have  manifested  that  earnestness  and  devo- 
tion which  would  constitute  their  use  of  these  qualities  a 
religion.  On  the  gates  of  the  "  Celestial  Kingdom "  is 
very  legibly  written :  Do  not  ask  here  what  mysteries 
have  been  fathomed  ;  but  behold  what  realities  have  been 
achieved. 

The  three  obvious  traits  of  this  muscular  type,  or  work 
temperament,  have  at   first  view  an  unpromising  ^^^ 
aspect.     They  are  its  instincts  for  plodding  labor,  obvious 
for  dead-level  uniformity,  for  minute  fidelity  in  de-  traitsof 

*'  J  the  mus- 

tails.     Looked  at  from  their  grotesque  side,  these  cuiartyp* 
instincts  are  familiar   to  the  Western  mind  as  a  °Smind- 
kind  of  antiquated  babyhood.     But  the  steady  plodding  has 
recorded  itself  in  a  wonderful  industrial  development ;  the 

5 


66  ELEMENTS. 

dead-level  uniformity,  in  systems  of  universal  education 
and  democratic  habits  of  thought  ;  and  the  minute  con- 
formity to  conditions,  in  a  complex  political  mechanism 
for  appointing  to  public  offices  those  who  are  fittest  to 
fill  them.  Each  of  these  great  results  we  shall  examine  in 
detail. 

Of  all  Mongolic  races,  this  alone  has  shown  the  persist- 
ent  working-faculty  to  create  an  enduring  civiliza- 
tion.  The  crude  Turanian  energy  that  so  often 
swept  the  great  steppes  in  predatory  warfare,  and 
followed  Tchinggiskhan  and  Tamerlane  through  the 


type.  length  and  breadth  of  Asia,  overturning  and  fusing 
empires,  "  like  primitive  convulsions  of  Nature  "  or  a  storm 
of  inorganic  atoms,  —  only  to  disappear  as  swiftly  as  they 
came,  —  developed  into  permanent  wonders  of  agriculture 
and  manufactures  in  the  great  Eastern  plain  by  the  sea. 
Here  the  "hundred  black-haired  families  "  settled  in  remote 
ages,  and  forthwith  began  another  sort  of  raid,  —  to  drain 
off  the  floods,  to  burn  up  the  wilderness,  to  expel  the  wild 
beasts,  to  portion  the  land  into  farms.  Their  industrial 
achievement  has  given  them,  as  it  progressed  through  the 
ages,  the  commanding  place  they.  hold  in  modern  civiliza- 
tion. It  has  been  estimated  that  they  perform  from  six  to 
seven  tenths  of  the  manual  labor  done  in  the  world.  May 
I  not  go  behind  the  more  obvious  traits  of  the  Turanic  type, 
all  of  which  would  leave  this  record  an  unexplained  excep- 
tion, —  and  ascribe  it  to  a  constitutional  necessity  of  the 
type  in  question  to  bury  itself  in  the  actual  and  concrete, 
conceiving  only  in  the  very  act  of  executing  ? 

All  testimonies  agree  that  the  Chinese  as  a  whole  are 
Practical  what  the  sway  of  such  realism  would  make  them,  — 
onhhT5  cheerful,  observant,  keen  of  wit  ;  earnest,  abound- 
facuity.  ing  in  the  virtues  of  patience  and  self-discipline. 


LABOR.  67 

No  people  better  understands  the  uses  of  organization  ;  and 
it  has  been  observed  that  their  business-like  character  and 
habits  of  laboring  for  common  ends  suggest  resemblance  to 
the  French  and  the  American  much  more  than  to  the  races 
of  Southern  Europe.1  "  They  are  equal  to  any  climate,"  says 
Medhurst ;  "  and  nothing  else  is  needed  but  teaching  and 
enterprise,  to  convert  them  into  the  most  effective  work- 
men on  the  face  of  the  earth."  2  They  astonish  foreigners 
by  the  apparent  ease  with  which  they  perform  what  we  re- 
gard as  the  functions  of  beasts  of  burden.  Labor,  in  fact, 
seems  to  have  been  brought  to  a  sort  of  science  by  their 
habit  of  relieving  it  with  frequent  intermissions,  and  thereby 
maintaining  an  independence  in  it  which  is  probably  neces- 
sary to  their  constitution  ;  the  result  being,  that,  notwith- 
standing the  inferior  quality  of  their  food  and  their  appar- 
ent lack  of  blood  and  muscle,  they  perform  an  equal  amount 
of  work  with  Europeans  in  a  given  time.3  Women  are  said 
to  work  no  harder  than  corresponding  classes  in  other  coun- 
tries ;  yet  families  are  provided  for,  and  absolute  destitution 
is  more  rare  than  in  England.4 

The  force  of  this  impulse  to  industry  is  seen  in  the  fact 
that  they  seldom  exert  themselves  for  any  other  purpose. 
Their  work  is  work,  and  their  rest  is  rest.  Walking,  even 
riding,  for  health  or  pleasure  is  said  to  astonish  them,  and 
they  stand  agape  at  sight  of  it.5  Reaction  against  a  phys- 
ical strain  so  constant  and  organic  is  natural  enough,  and 
exhibits  itself  in  such  habits  among  the  richer  classes  as 
letting  the  nails  grow  long,  in  proof  that  the  wearer  has 
escaped  into  a  rare  and  crowning  leisure.  The  passion  for 
elaboration  makes  Chinese  art  pre-raphaelite  in  its  minute- 
ness. An  object  is  valuable  according  to  the  amount  of 
labor  expended  on  it,  apart  from  the  mere  question  of  cost. 


1  Davis,  II.  67.  *  Foreigner  in  Far  Cathay,  p.  183. 

9  Julien's  Industr.  d.  FEmf.  Chin.,  p.  216.          4  Giles's  Chinese  Sketches,  pp.  11,  12. 
5  Meadows's  Notes,  6r*c.,  pp.  220,  222. 


68  ELEMENTS. 

Where  we  should  exclaim,  "  How  beautiful  it  is  !  "  in  Canton 
they  would  say,  "  How  much  work  there  is  in  it !  " : 

The  old  Chinese  lived  close  to  Nature;  took  on  them- 
selves her  tasks,  made  the  most  of  her  gifts.     They 

Agriculture. 

had  superintendents  of  the  mountains,  the  woods, 
the  streams,  and  the  lakes  ;  they  worshipped  gods  of  the 
land  and  grain.  From  oldest  time,  the  ruler,  as  represent- 
ative of  the  national  religion,  has  paid  annual  honors  to  the 
spirits  of  the  land,  holding  the  plough  and  opening  the  first 
furrow  of  the  year,  in  presence  of  the  people.  The  earliest 
king  in  the  national  legend,  except  Fo-hi,  who  revealed  the 
primitive  forms  of  Nature,  was  Shin-nung,  the  divine  Hus- 
bandman. The  Athenians  too,  a  very  different  people  from 
the  Chinese,  rendered  homage  to  the  plough  and  the  oldest 
husbandry ;  tracing  their  own  origin  to  agricultural  deities 
and  laborers.2 

Nature  is  man's  mother,  as  Spirit  is  his  father  ;  and  his 
first  aspirations  are  the  groping  of  his  infant  hands  for  her 
bosom.  The  oldest  form  of  laws  recognized  by  the  great 
races  of  antiquity  seems  to  have  been  what  the  Greeks 
called  thesmoi ;  meaning  that  natural  order,  preceding  all 
human  statutes,  which  governed  the  seasons  and  blessed 
the  toils  of  men.  Their  thesmophoria  were  probably  anal- 
ogous to  the  Chinese  festivals  in  honor  of  the  first  husband- 
man.3 The  mythologies  of  the  Hindu  Ramayana  and  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries  alike  centre  in  the  sacred  Furrow  of 
the  Plough  ;  signified  by  both  names,  Sita  in  India,  and 
Kore  in  Greece.  The  vast  systems  of  irrigation  that  chan- 
nelled the  plains  of  ancient  Babylonia  and  Southern  Arabia 
were  doubtless  as  old  as  the  Hamite  or  Cushite  populations, 
whose  physical  mass-power  and  industry  resembled  those 
of  the  tribes  who  were  fertilizing  the  opposite  side  of  Asia. 
Even  the  Shemites,  a  pastoral  race,  and  psychologically  as 

1  Arb.  d.  Russ.  Gesandsch.  z.  Peking,  I.  252. 

2  Duncker,  Gesch.  d.  Alterth.,  III.  93. 

8  Cf.  Burnouf,  Llgende  Athenienne,  pp-  136-143. 


LABOR.  69 

far  as  possible  from  the  Chinese,  go  back  to  legendary 
labors  of  the  same  kind  ;  and  their  dyke  of  "Lok-man  "  re- 
minds us  of  the  pioneer  toils  of  Yu.1 

At  the  same  season,  the  labors  of  the  other  sex  in  China 
were  religiously  opened  by  the  empress  with  her  attendants, 
entering  on  the  delicate  task  of  breeding  silkworms  in  the 
palace  park.2  Of  this  industry  one  of  her  first  predeces- 
sors was,  in  the  same  way  as  Shin-nung  in  agriculture,  re- 
garded as  the  inventor. 

It  was  held  from  the  beginning  that  man  could  not  be- 
come good  nor  happy  until  he  had  enough  to  eat  and  drink  ; 
and  the  great  care  of  Government  was  to  see  that  provision 
was  made  for  the  security  of  labor  in  the  enjoyment  of  its 
earnings,  and  for  the  employment  of  the  poor. 

This  piety  toward  labors  upon  the  earth  was  symbolic 
of  the  national  character.  In  the  first  traditional  organiza- 
tion of  China  there  is  a  Ministry  of  Public  Works  ; 3  and 
the  last  chapters  of  the  Tcheouli-Institutes  contain  prob- 
ably the  most  elaborate  record  of  industrial  rules  and  pro- 
cesses in  ancient  history,  —  including  at  least  a  hundred 
trades.  A  Shi-king  Ode  celebrates  the  primitive  virtues  of 
an  ancestor  of  the  dukes  of  Tcheou  :  — 

"  Kong-lieou,  our  prince,  did  not  shrink  from  toil  : 

He  sought  neither  pleasure  nor  repose. 

Devoted  to  husbandry,  busily  portioning  the  lands, 

With  harvests  he  filled  his  granaries  every  year. 

He  went  over  the  country,  and  saw  peace  and  content ; 

Ascended  the  hills  —  laborers  were  tilling  their  summits  ; 

Descended  into  the  vales  — they  too  were  peopled. 

He  measured  the  fields,  dividing  each  into  nine  lots, 

The  central  lot  to  be  tilled  by  the  common  toil,  for  the  State,  — 

Regulating  the  labors  of  farmers  and  fixing  the  tithes  of  the  harvest. 

Resting  on  a  height,  he  had  mats  spread,  and  on  them  were  stools, 

On  which  his  officers  took  their  places. 

1  Cf.  Lenormant's  Ancient  History  of  the  East,  II.  297,  299. 

*  Tcheouli,  B.  vn  (13). 

8  The  Yukung  chapter  of  the  Shirking. 


70  ELEMENTS. 

He  sent  to  the  herds  ;  he  took  swine  from  the  pens, 
And  poured  out  spirits  in  gourds  for  his  attendants,  — 
They,  eating  and  drinking,  acknowledged  him  their  lord." l 

In  these  institutions,  land  was  made  the  civil  and  politi- 
cal basis,  —  a  sure  sign  that  the  old  Chinese  knew 

Its  honors 

in  old  how  to  lay  foundations  of  a  great  empire,  and  that 
time.  their  later  success  was  no  accident,  but  cumulative 
incomes  wisely  earned.  Husbandry,  in  Europe  slowty  devel- 
oped after  the  age  of  Charlemagne,  was  here  the  first  and 
earliest  thing  :  special  officers  stimulated  it ;  its  inventors 
were  honored ;  vagabonds  punished ;  taxes  levied  on  the 
idle  ;  unimproved  lands  resumed  by  the  State.  The  in- 
terests of  agriculture  have  always  taken  precedence  of  those 
of  war,  and  have  never  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  the  foun- 
dation of  political  economy.  The  labor  of  the  farmer  is 
emphasized  as  the  root  of  productive  industry,  in  all  public 
announcements  bearing  on  the  subject  of  national  resource. 
To  exhort  to  this  form  of  industry,  as  well  as  personally  to 
do  it  honor,  is  a  traditional  function  of  the  emperor.  In 
the  "  Sacred  Instructions "  of  Yung-ching,  for  instance, 
read  at  stated  times  throughout  the  empire,  it  is  said :  — 

"  When  a  man  ploughs  not,  some  one  in  consequence  suffers 
hunger  ;  when  a  woman  weaves  not,  some  one  suffers  cold.  In 
ancient  times  the  Son  of  Heaven  himself  directed  the  plough, 
the  empress  planted  the  mulberry  tree. 

"  You,  O  soldiers,  ought  to  consider  that  to  the  cultivation  of 
farms  and  mulberry  trees  you  owe  every  grain  and  every  thread 
by  which  you  and  your  families  subsist. 

"  The  late  emperor  [Kang-hi]  ordered  representations  of  the 
arts  of  weaving  and  husbandry  to  be  engraven  for  distribution, 
that  the  people  might  be  stimulated  to  the  culture  of  their 
lands." 

The  laws  followed  the  rule  that  "  they  who  will  not  work 

i  Shi-king,  III.  ii.  6. 


LABOR.  71 

shall  not  have."  No  outer  coffin  for  those  who  planted  no 
trees  ;  no  silk  garments  for  those  who  raised  no  silkworms  ; 
no  full  morning  dresses  for  those  who  did  not  spin  ;  no 
animals  nor  plants  to  be  offered  by  any  one  which  he  had 
not  raised.1  Alvarez  (i6th  century)  says  no  traveller  is 
allowed  to  stay  more  than  three  or  four  days  in  a  place  where 
he  has  no  occupation,  and  every  one  is  obliged  to  exercise 
some  function.2  That  none  be  publicly  supported  who  can 
maintain  themselves  is  still  the  law  of  the  land.  Fortune 
tells  us  that  nowhere  in  the  world  are  the  farming  popula- 
tion on  the  whole  in  better  condition.3  They  have  small 
estates,  freehold  but  for  a  small  tax  paid  the  crown  ;  under 
laws  of  primogeniture  indeed,  but  practically  divided  at 
death  in  equal  shares  among  the  male  children,  since  all 
can  remain  thereon  with  their  families  :  and  the  ties  of 
kindred  are  thus  enlisted  in  development  of  the  land. 

It  has  been  said  by  Plath,  one  of  the  most  devoted  stu- 
dents of  Chinese  history,  that  this  people  were  in  ancient 
times  "  organized  as  a  great  industrial  army."  And  if  we 
read  the  minute  regulations  for  such  purposes  in  which  all 
their  old  governmental  systems  abound,  we  shall  hardly 
think  the  language  too  strong.4 

It  would  seem  that  these  mechanical  arrangements  by 
imperial  authority  are  but  the  natural  flow  of  popu-  Love  of 
lar  instinct.  The  busy  life  of  the  modern  Chinese  ^^c 
street,  where  crowds,  however  close,  fall  spontane-  processes, 
ously  into  good  order  and  mutual  deference ;  the  ease  and 
grace  with  which  their  movable  workshops  come  and  go ; 
their  conformity  to  nature  and  good  sense  in  closing  their 
shops  at  nightfall,  and  resorting  without  curfew  to  their 


1  Plath,  Rel.  u.  Cult.  d.  Alt.  Chin.(Denkschr.  d.  Bay.Akad.,  IX.  867.)  Gingell'sTcheou 
Laws  ;  Tckeou-li,  B.  xn. ;  Mencius,  V.  ii.  2. 

1  Hakluyt  Soc.  ;  Mendoza's  History  of  China. 

8  See  also  Lay,  Chinese  as  they  A  re,  p.  268. 

*  See  especially  Mencius,  V.  ii.  2;  the  Yukung  chapter  of  the  Shu-king;  and  the  land 
arrangements  of  the  Tcfeou-li. 


72  ELEMENTS. 

homes  ;  their  proverbial  punctuality  in  work  ;  that  economy 
of  time  and  means  which  is  no  less  than  a  form  of  genius  ; 
that  delight  in  labor  which  makes  the  Californian  immi- 
grant cheerfully  hold  on  for  eleven  hours  a  day,  and  which 
draws  the  highest  compliments  alike  from  manufacturers 
and  railroad  contractors,  —  indicate  that  the  great  indus- 
trial civilization  of  this  people  is  the  fulfilment  of  a  psycho- 
logical destiny,  and  that  to  ascribe  it  to  the  force  of  rules 
and  laws  imposed  by  the  State  is  to  mistake  effect  for  cause. 
Nature's  Nature  has  here  framed  her  own  journeyman  out 
own  jour-  of  her  seasons  and  conditions,  continuities  and 
neyman.  routjnes  .  out  of  ^g  fidelity  of  her  laws,  and  the 
persistency  of  her  processes.  These  are  his  element : 
though  he  cannot  report,  he  can  as  little  escape  them.  He 
is  productive  as  the  sun,  and  finds  it  no  harder  to  create 
material  values  by  steady  toil  than  the  sunbeam  to  travel 
onward  without  rest. 

Montfort,1  describing  the  working  season  in  Fo-kien,  says 
Labors  of  that  "  men,  women,  and  children  poured  out  into 
L^F^idln  tne  fi^ds  of  sugar-cane  ;  and  the  noise  of  their  im- 
&c.  plements.  was  mingled  with  the  murmur  of  Chinese 

syllables  like  the  monotonous  cry  of  the  cricket."  "  When 
near  Nan-king,  I  could  hardly  take  a  step  in  the  country 
without  hearing  the  whirr  of  the  shuttle,  and  whenever  I 
entered  a  peasant's  cot  I  always  found  the  family  at  work  ; 
sometimes,  even  in  miserable  huts,  three  looms  were  going 
at  once."  Six  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  acres  are  under 
Vast  ro-  cultivation  in  China  alone,  independent  of  her  colo- 
ductive  nies.2  The  hundred  million  pounds  of  tea  exported 
in  1846  were  but  a  twentieth  part  of  the  annual 
product  in  that  article ;  and  so  vast  is  the  amount  of  this 
that  a  sudden  failure  of  the  whole  Western  demand  would 
scarcely  affect  the  home  price.3  The  tonnage  of  the  coast 

1   Voyage  en  Chine,  pp.  199,  247.  *  Notes  and  Queries,  July,  1868. 

3  Fortune's  Wanderings,  pp.  207,  214,  215. 


LABOR.  73 

and  river  craft  alone  exceeds  that  of  all  other  nations  to- 
gether.1 Mountains  of  silk  are  produced  every  year.  The 
manufacture  of  porcelain  at  King-te-chin  has  employed  a 
million  of  workmen  ;  and  the  light  of  its  furnaces  by  night 
resembles  an  immense  conflagration.2  In  all  fine  work- 
manship for  literary  or  aesthetic  uses  the  industries  of  Nan- 
king, previous  to  their  desolation  by  the  Tai-ping  war,  were 
equally  productive.  What  nation  has  public  works  on  such 
a  scale  ?  China  is  veined  with  roads  ;  with  rivers  navigated 
to  their  springs  ;  with  canals  of  irrigation.  Hundreds  of 
thousands  were  often  busy  on  this  kind  of  labor  at  one 
time,  as  in  the  T'sin  and  Ming  periods.  The  mammoth  of 
canals  belongs  to  China,  six  hundred  and  fifty  miles  long ; 
its  bed  cut  down  in  some  places  seventy  feet,  its  banks 
twenty  feet  above  the  country,  and  a  hundred  feet  thick. 
The  leviathan  of  walls  is  here,  one  thousand  two  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  long :  very  unequally  built  indeed  of  earth 
enclosed  by  brick  and  cement,  but  resting  on  granite 
blocks,  and  containing  material  enough  to  girdle  the  globe 
with  a  thread  several  feet  in  thickness.3  Here  are  imperial 
palaces  encircled  with  six  miles  of  wall ;  temples  thousands 
of  feet  in  circumference  ;  artificial  lakes  and  mountains,  of 
great  size.  It  is  a  people  with 'whom  only  the  Aztecs  and 
the  Egyptians  are  to  be  compared  for  physical  toil ;  and 
who  seem  to  have  worked  sometimes,  indeed,  under  com- 
pulsion, yet  from  an  innate  love  of  labor,  and  usually  for 
ends  in  which,  —  as  for  instance  in  the  great  protective 
wall  of  the  T'sin  dynasty,  —  they  must  have  had  the  same 
interest  as  their  rulers. 

Almost  all  labor  in  China  is  human.     The  few  beasts  of 
burden,  starved  and  overworked,  apparently  exist   Exclusive. 
but  to  show  how  the  teeming  population  grudges  iy  human 
space  and  food  even  to  man's  most  efficient  helpers 

*  Williams,  II.  24.  *  Girard,  II.  316. 

3  Hue,  II.  177  ;  Fleming,  pp.  319,  342. 


74  ELEMENTS. 

in  his  heaviest  tasks.  Here  all  processes  are  but  forms  of 
human  agency.  Man  is  beginning,  middle,  end  of  Nature's 
circle.  He  is  the  consumer  of  the  earth  ;  and  he  only,  its 
compost.  He  eats  all  things,  and  he  repairs  all  things. 
Filial  piety  itself  is  not  strong  enough  to  turn  the  plough- 
share aside  from  ancestral  graves.  "  Suffer  not  a  barren 
spot  to  remain  a  wilderness,"  says  the  Sacred  Edict,  "  nor 
a  lazy  person  to  abide  in  the  town."  All  materials  are 
utilized  in  the  service  of  life.  Hills  are  terraced  to  their 
tops  ;  millet  is  sown  between  rows  of  mulberry  trees,  cotton 
in  just  reaped  cornfields.1  "Not  a  weed  nor  a  waste  yard," 
says  a  traveller  in  Northern  China  ;  "  not  a  hedge  nor  fence 
to  steal  space  from  the  limits  of  an  unsurpassed  frugality." 
The  plain  of  Shang-hai  is  perhaps  the  richest  in  the  world. 
The  laborer  uses  no  complicated  machinery,  but  has  most 
of  the  simpler  tools  employed  by  us  ;  and  the  multitudinous 
hands  are  probably  more  effective  than  any  machinery,  in 
the  finer  processes  of  agriculture.  Every  part  of  the  cotton 
plant  is  used  :  the  wool  is  woven  into  clothing ;  the  seeds 
yield  oil  ;  the  stalks  are  fuel ;  the  ashes  are  manure,  and 
fresh  crops  are  planted  before  the  earlier  ones  are  removed.2 
Preparations  of  vegetable  ashes  are  in  use  for  expelling 
insects  ;  and  the  old  law  books  abound  in  strange  prescrip- 
tions for  agricultural  uses,  many  of  them  more  valuable  to 
us  as  signs  of  zeal  than  of  science,  but  others  undoubtedly 
the  result  of  experience  in  a  pursuit  which  has  absorbed 
the  interest  of  the  nation  from  earliest  time.  With  a  wisdom 
unknown  to  the  Celt,  imperial  instructions  have  often  urged 
a  twofold  industry ;  that,  when  one  failed,  the  other  might 
preserve  the  people.  "  Let  the  farmer  attend  to  his  grain, 
and  the  women  to  their  cloth  ;  and  the  superabundance 
of  the  one  will  supply  any  defect  of  the  other."  3  Simon, 


1  Williams,  II.  103 ;   La  Chine  Ouverte,  pp.  163,  164. 

2  Fortune,  Wander ings,  p.  277.     For  the  uses  to  which  the  bamboo  is  put  in  China,  see 
Grosier,  II.  381.  3  Martin's  China,  I.  87. 


LABOR.  75 

sent  by  Napoleon  to  report  on  the  Chinese  system  of  agri- 
culture, stated  that  in  no  other  part  of  the  world  had  he 
seen  such  results  as  were  here  produced  by  manual  and 
personal  labor.  The  Northern  provinces  are  said  to  yield 
two  crops  annually ;  the  Southern,  five  in  two  years  :  and 
this  has  continued  for  ages,  aided  by  skilful  processes  of 
sowing  and  rotation.1  If  China  or  Japan  followed  our 
methods  of  tillage,  famine  and  death  would  soon  destroy 
millions.2 

With  such  success  do  they  apply  their  instinct  for  cyclic 
movement  to  the  art  of  restoring  to  the  soil  all  ele-  Economic 
ments  that  have  been  withdrawn  from  it,  that  China,  processes, 
alone  among  civilized  countries,  has  preserved  her  acres 
from  exhaustion.  A  thousand  years  of  culture  make  as 
little  change  in  their  productiveness  as  time  has  wrought 
in  the  physical  and  mental  type  of  her  people.  So  wonder- 
fully pulverized  is  the  soil  by  incessant  handwork,  that  not 
a  clod  can  be  found,  after  a  long  rain,  in  some  cultivated  dis- 
tricts.3 No  spendthrift  throwing  aside  of  old  soils,  as  in 
America,  to  scratch  the  surface  of  new.  Agriculture  here 
reflects  the  moral  laws  and  noble  conditions  of  human 
growth.  "  Better  manure  your  old  land  than  buy  new," 
says  the  national  proverb.  Agricultural  treatises  have 
abounded  in  all  times  ;  and  two  great  encyclopaedias,  issued 
in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  cover  this 
branch  of  industry  with  a  fulness  that  proves  unabated 
interest  in  the  development  of  the  soil.4 

The  distribution  of  this  immense  industrial  product  is  on 
a  proportional  scale.    On  the  vast  network  of  rivers, 

r  Distribu- 

the  movement  of  boats  bearing  the  sugar,  oil,  and  tkm  of 
rice  of  the  South  ;  the  tea,  silk,  cotton,  and  crockery  Products- 
of  the  East ;  the  grain  and  medicines  of  the  North ;  the 

1  Julien  and  Champion,  Industr.  de  F Empire  CAtnffis,  p.  176. 

*  Smithsonian  Ref>.  on  Agric.,  1862. 

8  Cooke's  China,  p.  247. 

4  Plath,  Die  Landwirthschaft  d.  Chin.  u.  Jap.  (1874). 


76  ELEMENTS. 

metals  and  minerals  of  the  West,  —  is  described  as  prodigi- 
ous. The  swelling  population  has  overflowed  into  the  rivers, 
and  built  out  another  continent  for  its  surplus  productive 
energies  upon  their  oceanic  tides.  The  postal  service  car- 
ries letters  two  hundred  miles  a  day,  to  offices  in  all  the 
important  towns,  at  the  cheapest  rate.1  Many  imperial  high- 
roads in  Northern  China,  now  in  partial  decay,  are  seventy 
feet  broad,  set  with  five  rows  of  trees,  with  signal  towers 
every  few  miles,  and  excellent  inns  for  couriers  and  travel- 
lers. Cartroads  are  innumerable.  The  graveyard  question 
will  stand  less  in  the  way  of  introducing  railroads  into 
China  than  is  often  supposed  :  the  depredations  of  rebels 
alone  will  have  nullified  this  objection.2 

Horticulture  is  a  passion,  and  the  vegetable  garden  is  the 
Horti-  Chinaman's  paradise.  Four  or  five  crops  easily 
culture.  come  of  his  acre,  per  year.  Every  elegant  mansion 
has  its  ornamental  grounds.  A  French  writer  says  the 
English  have  found  their  models  in  this  line  in  China,  and 
the  French  have  followed  them.3  Chinese  parks  are  vast 
free  gardens  pointing  back  to  periods  of  liberal  thought 
and  culture.4  The  arts  of  grafting,  pruning,  dwarfing, 
enlarging,  and 'varying  species,  and  the  laws  of  selection, 
have  been  well  understood  for  ages.  Of  the  tree-peony 
alone  hundreds  of  varieties  have  been  cultivated,  some  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years.5  The  Dutch  embassy  in  the 
seventeenth  century  observed  that  farmers  put  their  fruit 
whole  into  the  ground,  and  then  set  out  the  shoots  at  good 
distances  apart ;  so  raising  great  trees  in  a  short  time.6 
Odes  of  the  Shi-king  and  elaborate  treatises  on  floriculture" 
testify  to  a  constitutional  delight  in  flowers,  like  the  taste 


1  Giles's  Sketches,  p.  61.  2  Williamson,  N.  Chin.  Br.  R.  A .  Sac.,  Dec.,  1867. 

8  Girard,  II.  10.     See  also  Lord  Macartney's  enthusiastic  description  of  the  imperial  parks 
at  Gehol. 

*  Koch.  Varies.  Of.  Dendrol.  (Berlin,  1874,  1875). 

6  Darwin,  A  nimals  and  Plants  under  Domestication,  1 1.  248. 

6  Dutch  Embassy,  II.  67.  7  Wylie's  Chin.  Lit.,  p.  120. 


LABOR.  77 

of  the  country  people  for  having  their  rude  hills  covered 
with  the  beauty  of  the  white  azalea,  with  the  honeysuckle, 
clematis,  and  brilliant  shrubs.  "  This  love  for  flowers,"  says 
St.  Denys,  "  is  a  real  worship,  a  mystic  affection."  Travel- 
lers descant  on  the  charms  of  Chinese  inns,  set  in  a  frame- 
work of  asters,  roses,  and  amaranths  ;  on  the  splendor  of  the 
flower  boats  ; 1  on  wide  areas  of  pleasant  villages  and  culti- 
vated fields ;  on  the  patriarchal  simplicity  of  farm-life  in 
portions  of  Northern  China,  where,  as  in  Swiss  villages, 
good  wishes  and  counsels  are  inscribed  on  the  doors.2 
Romances  deal  largely  in  sentimental  meanings  of  flowers  ; 
effusions  of  lovers  are  hung  in  conspicuous  places  under 
the  title  of  "  Flowery  Scrolls."  China  is  itself  the  "  Flowery 
Kingdom,"  and  the  splendor  and  perfume  of  our  New-Eng- 
land gardens  are  specially  due  to  shrubs  from  old  Cathay. 
Utilitarian  limits  are  escaped  in  this  line,  and  even  with  a 
protest ;  for  the  mulberry  is  banished  from  the  gardens  of 
the  rich  because  it  is- industrially  profitable,  and  useful  trees 
are  admitted  only  when  they  yield  perfume,  fine  foliage, 
or  exquisite  table  fruit.3 

We  might  indeed  expect  that  so  spontaneous  a  force  as 
Chinese   industry  would  exhibit  ideal    tendencies.  ^sthetic 
A  wonderful  refinement  of  perception  and  delicacy  Gifts, 
of  handling  here  supplies  the  place  of  those  grander 
forms  of  art  which  require  abstraction  and  contemplation. 
The  aesthetic  gift  of  the  Chinese  is  a  fine  sense  of  touch. 
The  tender  and  watchful  art  required  for  protecting  their 
silkworms,  and   for  preserving   the  vitality  of  continually 
exfoliated  trees  ;  the  frequent  removal  of  leaves  by  careful 
selection  ;  the  perfect   stillness,  so    needed  for  the  whole 
process  that  the  worms  are  kept  apart  in  quiet  groves  ;  the 
similar  delicacy  of  their  tea-culture,  of  porcelain  manufact- 
ure, and  of  their  lacquer-work,  so  guarded  from  dust  that 

1  Fleming,  p    174;  Fortune,  p.  147.  *  Fleming,  pp.  107-109,  115,  178,  179,  185. 

8  Montfort,  p.  252. 


78  ELEMENTS. 

the  workmen  do  not  enter  the  rooms  in  their  clothing  ; 
their  paper,  too  delicate  for  press-work,  or  made  of  softest 
pith  resembling  rice  ;  their  damasks  of  royal  tints  and 
strange  intricate  pattern;  their  screens  and  scrolls,  too  fine 
for  furniture  ;  their  rosewood  chairs  with  silk  cushions  ; 
their  fanciful  lanterns,  curiously-wrought  cabinets,  and 
variegated  vases,  —  are  all  instances  of  a  delicate,  if  not  fully 
cultured,  aesthetic  taste.  No  importations  have  been  so 
refining  to  European  civilization  as  the  tea,  silk,  porcelain, 
embroidery,  which  Chinese  industry  has  contributed. 

Musa,  the  Saracen  conqueror  of  Spain,  is  recorded  to 
Mechanical  have  said,  that  when  Wisdom  was  sent  down  to 
dexterity.  merjj  she  was  lodged  in  the  head  of  the  Greeks, 
the  tongue  of  the  Arabs,  and  the  hands  of  the  Chinese. 
The  strokes  made  by  the  fingers  of  a  good  Chinese  writer 
with  his  camel's -hair  pencil,  and  his  rapid  changes  from 
the  use  of  one  finger  to  that  of  another,  are  almost  beyond 
following.  Barrow  saw  complicated  European  furniture 
taken  in  pieces  and  put  together  again  with  wonderful 
dexterity,  by  natives  who  had  never  before  seen  their 
like.  One  reason  for  the  popular  reverence  for  written 
paper  is  that  writing  is  not  a  mere  utility,  but  the  most 
attractive  of  fine  arts.  What  aesthetic  progress,  if  we 
compare  the  Shu-king  descriptions  of  public  and  private 
buildings,  —  wooden  frames  filled  in  with  earth  or  stones, 
a  rude  art  still  prevailing  in  the  interior  of  China,  —  with 
the  modern  Chinese  mansion ;  its  rich  vases,  gay  satin  cur- 
tains covered  with  scenery  and  animal  painting,  quaintly 
carved  furniture  of  ebony  and  rosewood,  trellis-work  in 
galleries,  tiled  walks,  marbles,  stuccos,  scrolls,  delicate  pen- 
cil-work, and  writing  materials.  The  primitive  tent-shape 
is  scarcely  suggested  by  the  infinite  modifications  to  which 
it  has  been  subjected,  —  rising  to  their  perfection  in  the 
threefold  azure  roof  and  the  exquisite  trellis-finish  of  the 
vermilion  Temple  of  Heaven,  lifting  tent  above  tent  from 


LABOR.  79 

its  three  marble  terraces,  out  of  nearly  a  mile  square  of 
groves  and  lawns.  The  temples  are  apt  to  be  most  like 
garden  retreats  or  country  residences  :  such  happy  love  of 
art  is  expended  on  their  surroundings.  This  daintiness  is 
often  replaced  by  a  taste  for  the  rude  and  colossal,  as  if  the 
life  of  the  steppe  and  forest  had  survived  ;  as  in  the  stu- 
pendous rampart  that  toils  along  a  thousand  miles  of 
mountain  and  plain,  and  in  the  fifteen  memorial  halls  of 
the  Ming  emperors,  described  by  Pumpelly  and  Hiibner, 
one  of  which  is  ninety  feet  wide  by  two  hundred  long  and 
fifty  high,  and  supported  by  rows  of  columns,  each  a  teak 
timber  of  eleven  feet  circumference.  But  seldom  does 
Chinese  architecture  indicate  a  desire  to  leave  enduring 
monuments  ;  this  love  of  work  is  too  well  satisfied  in  its 
own  present  relations,  to  pay  homage  to  the  future. 

Painting  and  sculpture  are  not  favored  by  the  sages, 
and  there  have  been  Confucian  statutes  against  Paint;ng 
the  latter  art  as  savoring  of  idolatry.  The  mon-  andscuip- 
archical  Semite  does  not  repel  image-worship  more 
severely  than  these  prosaic  rationalists,  whose  State  tem- 
ples are  as  bare  of  such  symbolism  as  the  Mongolian 
steppes.  Even  purely  human  statues  do  not  often  stand 
free, —  the  Chinese  not  apprehending  individuality  as  the 
Greeks  did,  —  but  rest  on  a  background  of  wall.  Yet 
China  is  sprinkled  with  popular  statuary ;  mainly  of  sym- 
bolic Buddhist  or  other  imagery,  generally  in  grotesque  or 
exaggerated  forms.  For  this  over-realistic  people  make  of 
their  religious  art  an  escape  for  their  repressed  ideal, 
whose  reactions  break  forth  too  crudely  and  spasmodically 
to  be  true  to  nature.  Their  allegorical  sculpture  is  de- 
scribed as  no  less  charming  than  it  is  in  appearance  bur- 
lesque ;  its  lions  and  tigers  certainly  suggesting  the  fact 
that  these  creatures  do  not  frequent  the  Chinese  empire. 
But,  like  every  other  product,  it  is  almost  without  limit  in 
amount  and  elaboration.  Bastian  saw  stone  figures  of  men 


8<D  ELEMENTS. 

and  animals  at  intervals  all  the  way  to  Kal-gan.  The  Ming 
tombs  are  approached  by  lines  of  colossal  monoliths  in 
marble,  for  half  a  mile.  Similar  avenues  are  not  infre- 
quent, as  approaches  to  tombs.1  Jesuit  letters  of  the  six- 
teenth century  speak  of  statues  in  the  temples,  of  very 
great  size,  and  covered  with  beaten  gold.2 

Even  more  astonishing  is  the  quantity  and  quality  of 
minute  sculpture.  The  great  pagoda  of  Nan-king  was  beset 
with  innumerable  images.  The  Chinese  are  elaborate 
workmen  in  ivory,  horn,  mother-of-pearl,  jade,  and  bronze. 
The  cutting  of  many  a  jade  vase  must  have  cost  the  labor 
of  a  lifetime,  and  this  toilsomeness,  hinted  in  their  mak- 
ing jade  the  emblem  of  all  virtues,  enforced  at  last  the 
substitution  of  their  equally  beautiful  porcelain.3 

Without  perspective,  shadows,  or  emphasis  in  tone, —  all 
of  which  are  rejected  as  optical  illusions, — their  paintings 
excite  our  wonder  by  skilful  management  and  intense  pur- 
ity of  color  ;  whether  heightened  by  the  soft  hazy  texture 
of  their  pith  paper,  or  imitating  the  primal  greens,  golds, 
and  blues  of  earth  and  sky  on  their  pagoda  roofs.  There 
are  descriptive  accounts  of  celebrated  painters,  one  of 
which  enumerates  fifteen  hundred  names ;  and  full  treat- 
ises on  painting  as  an  art.4  Their  devotion  to  ornamental 
work  is  mechanized  by  the  use  of  classic  books  of  conven- 
tional forms,  and  each  workman  gives  his  whole  attention 
to  one  kind  of  pattern.5  So  much  is  art  a  matter  of  me- 
chanical dexterity,  that  the  painters  have  learned  a  won- 
derful sleight  in  managing  two  brushes  at  once.  Artists 
lecture  to  crowds  by  the  blackboard,  and  execute  pictures 
of  birds  and  beasts  with  their  ringer  tips,  with  great 
address.6  Paintings  from  Buddha's  life  in  the  recognized 
attitudes  cover  the  temples. 

1  Girard,  II.  87;  Pumpelly ;  Hiibner.  2  Alvarez. 

8  Chefs  d'CEuvres  of  Industry,  p.  132.         *  Wylie,  Chinese  Literature,  pp.  108,  no. 

6  Chefs  d'CEuvres,  p.  146.  6  Lockhart,  Med,  Miss.,  p.  105. 


LABOR.  8 1 

The  older  Chinese  painters  showed  a  vitality  in  forms 
akin  to  the  wonderful  Japanese  art.  The  Arab 

Compared 

travellers  in  the  ninth  century,  not  very  good  critics  with  jap- 
probably,  declared  that  Chinese  painting  surpassed  a 
that   of  any  other  race.     Painting  has  embodied   the  na- 
tional history  quite  as  earnestly  as  writing ;  and  the  figures 
on   porcelain  show  so  admirably  the  changes  of  manners 
and  costume  that  it  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  antique 
vases  in  this  kind  should  be  so  rare  ;  few,  it  is  now  said, 
going  back  beyond  the  fourteenth  century.1     The  early  art 
has  the  advantages  of  a  less  minute  mechanical  formalism, 
and  of  greater  freedom  of  conception  in  the  workman. 

But  in  general,  pettiness  and  confusion  of  details,  defect 
of  dramatic  grouping,  isolation  of  forms,  absence  of  pettiness 
shadow  and  perspective,  a  constant  and  rigid   turn   in  details- 
of  portraits  to  face  the  spectator,  with  other  ever-recurring 
childish  traits,  show  that  the  fine  arts  are  stunted  by  con- 
stitutional absorption  in  concrete  things. 

Probably  the  vigorous  genius  of  Japan  was  stimulated  in 
this  as  in  almost  every  other  sphere,  by  the  potent  japanese 
initiative  of  the  Chinese.  Much  even  of  their  mod-  art- 
ern  work,  especially  in  Suchuen,  is  said  to  be  very  sugges- 
tive of  that  wonderful  style  which  is  now  bringing  the 
Western  nations  to  the  confessional  of  art.  And  their 
degeneracy,  as  a  whole,  while  not  unnatural  in  an  old  civil- 
ization of  fixed  routines,  is  certainly  due  in  large  degree 'to 
the  demand  of  Western  materialism  and  display  for  cheap 
mechanical  products.  Japanese  art,  for  us  a  timely  correc- 
tive of  this,  is  too  imperfectly  known  as  yet,  and  too  much 
aside  from  our  theme,  to  receive  in  this  place  more  than  a 
brief  reference.  The  enthusiasm  it  has  excited  is  proof  of 
•  a  recall  to  spontaneity  and  truth,  as  needful  in  our  tastes  as 

1  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  LXX.  720.  The  bronzes  are  probably  much  earlier ;  many 
are  claimed  to  belong  to  the  oldest  dynasties.  This  would  be  earlier  than  any  bronzes  from 
either  Assyria  or  Egypt. 

6 


84  ELEMENTS. 

another  China,  history  and  legend,  theatre  and  school  ; 
plants,  creatures,  landscape  ;  life  domestic  and  religious  ; 
dainty  tiles  and  proud  pagodas  ;  public  honors  and  private 
gifts  ;  mystery  of  her  cunning  and  miracle  of  her  fires  ; 
rivalling  gems  and  skies  with  arabesque  of  air-bubbles  and 
lace-work  of  crackled  radiance.  The  admiration  of  this 
porcelain  in  the  age  of  Lous  XIV.  may  well  have  made  an 
era  in  Western  ornamental  work.1  And  students  are  por- 
ing over  the  ceramic  art  of  the  old  Etruscans,  as  well  as 
of  the  Greeks,  to  find  indebtedness  to  this  far-descended 
product  of  the  original  genius  of  the  Mongol.2 

The  combination  of  religious  and  moral  ardor  with  crude 
performance,  makes  Chinese  musical  art  almost  a 

Music. 

burlesque.  Music  has  been  extracted  from  every 
thing,  —  skins,  terra-cotta,  metals,  silks,  wood,  bamboo, 
gourds.  Every  thing  was  dimly  suggestive  of  harmonies,  as 
prosaic  as  those  for  which  the  fine  ear  of  the  Greek  listened 
at  every  gate  of  Nature  were  poetic.  The  idea  that  musical 
relations  are  universal  runs  through  the  whole  civilization 
of  China,  an  inspiration  alike  of  its  philosophy  and  its 
song.  Plutarch  expresses  the  Greek  conception,  when  he 
says  that  "  the  moulding  of  ingenuous  manners  and  civil 
conduct  lies  in  a  well-grounded  musical  education."  In 
China,  too,  music  is  the  substance  of  virtue.  The  Shu-king 
says  that  Yu  appointed  a  minister  of  this  science  "to  teach 
our  sons  the  ways  of  right  conduct."  3  The  Li-ki  calls  it 
"the  union  of  heaven  and  earth,  the  abode  of  all  their  mys- 
teries."4 Older  poetry  celebrates  it  as  "the  echo  of  wis- 
dom and  mother  of  virtue,  the  way  of  divine  knowledge  ; 
not  for  charming  of  the  ear,  but  to  expel  discord  from  the 
heart."  Ma-touan-lin  calls  it  the  substance  of  government. 
The  Chinese,  like  the  Greeks,  had  typical  forms  of  music, 

1  For  Chinese  porcelain,  see  Jaquemart's  Hist,  of  Ceramic  Art ;  and  Chefs  d'CEuvres  of 
Industrial  Art,  p.  148. 

2  On  Mongolic  relations  of  the  Etruscans,  see  Taylor's  Researches, 
8  Shu-king,  II.  i.  24.  *  Li-ki,  ch.  xvi. 


LABOR.  85 

supposed  to  be  endowed  with  specific  virtues  in  the  disci- 
pline of  the  passions  ;  and  made  them  the  peculiar  prov- 
ince of  the  blind,  as  capable  of  more  undivided  attention 
than  others  to  their  meaning.1  Their  Orpheus,  whose 
touch  of  mythic  stones  tamed  savages  and  brutes,2  was 
an  official,  as  we  might  anticipate,  appointed  to  adapt  melo- 
dies to  the  eight  kinds  of  instruments.  His  music  was  of 
course  a  "  middle  path,"  making  the  young  nobles  earnest 
yet  mild,  strong  yet  modest,  dignified  yet  courteous.3  But 
their  true  Orpheus  is  that  wondrous  rhythm  of  toil,  which 
for  thousands  of  years  has  here  been  building  cities,  and 
creating  institutions  on  a  colossal  scale.  In  positive  musi- 
cal art  their  failure  is  amazing.  The  octave  is  believed  to 
have  been  recognized  in  very  ancient  times  by  means  of 
tubes  of  different  lengths,  and  divided  into  semi-tones.4 
But  the  plaintive  monotony,  the  confinement  to  one  key 
and  to  the  head  voice,  reveal  organic  defects  that  render 
the  expression  of  feeling  and  taste  impossible.  Enthusi- 
asts have  found  in  Chinese  melodies  resemblance  to  the 
Scotch,  and  even  the  Greek ;  but  the  sense  of  metric  pro- 
portion and  recurrence  is  far  cruder.  Not  even  in  music 
do  these  monotonists  escape  the  rigid  uniformity  which 
makes  their  language  a  stream  of  monosyllabic  waves.  Yet 
travellers  are  impressed  by  the  union  of  "  cheerfulness  with 
regularity "  in  the  singing  of  sailors,  keeping  time  to  the 
movement  of  their  oars.6 

"  If  any  man,"  says  old  Isaac  Vossius,6  "  should  collect 
all  that  every  nation  that  is,  or  has  been,  has  in-  inventive 
vented,  the  whole  together  would  not  be  more  ex-  ingenuity- 
cellent  and  various  than  what  is  exhibited  by  the  Seres 

Tcheou-li,  B.  XVH.  (Commentary.)  *  Shu-king,  />.,  II.  i.  24  ;  ii.  9. 

Tcheou-li,  B.  xvin. 

Amyot  wrote  an  absurd  account  of  great  discoveries  in  music  by  the  Chinese,  founded  on 
"the  relation  of  different  terms  of  triple  progression,"  from  which  he  supposes  the  Greeks  to 
have  derived  all  they  knew  on  the  subject,  possibly  through  Pythagoras. 

Barrow,  p.  81. 

Description  of  Chinese  Cities. 


86  ELEMENTS. 

alone."  The  Arab  travellers  in  the  ninth  century  had  a 
similar  opinion.  And  Ibn  Batuta,  in  the  fourteenth,  calls 
them  most  skilful  artificers. 

Within  the  sphere  of  useful  arts  they  have  certainly 
been  very  ingenious  ;  though  the  antiquity  of  most  of  their 
inventions  has  b^en  called  in  question,  and  they  have 
failed  to  develop  their  possible  uses.  Their  knowledge  of 
the  loadstone  is  doubtless  ancient ;  yet  the  familiar  story  of 
a  ducal  car  that  always  pointed  southwards,  commonly  sup- 
posed to  refer  to  the  magnet,  is  shown  to  be  of  compara- 
tively modern  origin,  even  later  than  the  Christian  era.1 
That  gunpowder  is  a  Chinese  discovery  has  also  been 
denied,  mainly  on  the  grounds  that  native  writers  ascribe 
it  to  the  barbarians,  and  that  it  has  been  used  almost  exclu- 
sively for  fireworks,  and  as  a  charm  against  demons.2  Yet 
it  is  admitted  that  the  Chinese  possessed  the  secret  earlier 
than  the  tenth  century.3  Tea  was  first  manufactured  in 
the  fourth  century  ;  linen  paper  in  the  third.  Printing  on 
wood  belongs  to  the  tenth,  and  was  the  oldest  form  of  ster- 
eotyping. Designs,  representing  Buddhist  deities,  auto- 
graphs, and  other  figures,  were  taken  from  wood  as  early 
as  the  sixth,  and  perhaps  as  the  third,  century.4  Printing 
from  stone  was  earlier  still.  Copies  of  the  Classics  were 
made  on  copper  for  better  preservation,  A.C.  943.  In  the 
eleventh  century,  a  blacksmith  invented  movable  types  ; 
but  these  were  scarcely  suitable  for  Chinese  characters, 
and  the  method  has  failed  to  pass  into  general  use.  Had 
Europe  been  in  connection  with  China  in  the  sixth  century, 
it  would  have  become  acquainted  with  printing  nearly  a 
thousand  years  earlier  than  it  did.  Whatever  their  date, 
four  discoveries  of  immeasurable  influence  on  civilization  — 

1  Mayers,  in  Notes  and  Queries. 

2  Ibid.  ;  before  N.  China  Branch  of  R.  As.  Soc.  ;  May,  1867. 

8  Amyot  thinks  it  was  used  for  military  purposes  as  early  as  the  Christian  era.  Mem.  of 
Miss,  de  Peking,  VIII. 

*  Chinese  Encyclopedia. 


LABOR.  87 

the  compass,  gunpowder,  printing,  and  tea  —  are  referable 
to  China.  Porcelain  is  on  record  as  perfected  in  the  third 
century  ;  but  the  earliest  furnace  mentioned  belonged  to 
the  seventh.1  Playing-cards  are  first  heard  of  in  the 
twelfth.  The  manufacture  of  ink  from  various  substances 
is  mentioned  in  many  old  works,  and  notices  are  given  of 
a  hundred  and  fifty  persons  famous  therein.2  Paper  sup- 
planted the  bamboo  tablet  and  the  silk  weft  as  early  as 
the  second  century,  B.C.  Dyeing  in  sundry  ingenious  ways 
Ijas  been  understood  from  remote  times.  Weaving  and 
embroidery  are  arts  of  immemorial  age.  The  most  exqui- 
site gauzes,  crapes,  and  silks  have  been  produced  with 
hand-looms  of  the  simplest  structure,  and  by  the  poorest 
of  the  people.  Silk  goes  back  to  pre-historic  time,  and 
ushers  in  the  name  of  the  wonderful  Seres  to  the  Western 
world.  Silken  robes  rustle  through  the  oldest  poetry,  and 
suggest  the  still  mulberry  groves  of  a  dainty  art.  Steel 
needles  are  an  old  Chinese  invention.3  Horn  is  softened 
by  heat,  and  thinned  out  into  fine  plates  for  lanterns,  by 
moans  of  pincers,  a  boiler,  and  a  little  stove.  The  bamboo 
has  been  put  to  all  uses  ;  to  the  Indo-Chinese  nations  a  real 
"  staff  of  life."  From  the  first,  the  Chinese  have  wrought 
metals  for  ornamental  purposes ;  they  have  also  mined,  but 
to  little  purpose,  as  they  are  wont  to  stop  when  they  come 
to  water.  The  arch  was  known  to  them  earlier  than  to 
the  European  world.  The  admirable  adaptation  of  their 
boat-building  to  the  navigation  of  rivers  and  coast-waters 
is  of  very  ancient  date.4  The  art  of  supplying  business 
facilities  by  banking  is  older  in  China  than  European 
knowledge  of  finance.  It  has  been  claimed  that  the  first 
circulating  notes  and  bills  of  credit  were  issued  at  Peking.5 
Paper  money  is  heard  of  as  early  as  the  ninth  century.  In 

1  Davis,  ch.  xviii.  «  Wylie,  117  ;  Duhalde,  II.  627. 

3  Lockhart,  Med.  Miss.  ch.  v.  *  Davis,  ch.  x. 

5  Knox,  p.  332. 


88  ELEMENTS. 

the  twelfth  the  empire  was  flooded  with  it,  and  the  conse- 
quence of  such  inflation  was,  of  course,  to  make  it  worth- 
less. The  Mongols  issued  it  in  1236,  and  Kublai-Khan  con- 
tinued to  do  so  throughout  his  reign.  Ibn  Batuta  describes 
it  in  the  fourteenth  century  as  the  chief  medium  of  busi- 
ness. After  1455,  it  is  not  heard  of  for  centuries  in 
Chinese  history,  and  recent  attempts  to  introduce  it  have 
wholly  failed.1 

Julien  and  Champion,  in  their  admirable  work  on  "  Chi- 
Certain  nese  Industry," 2  have  instanced  many  original 
original  inventions  as  yet  unknown  to  our  art ;  such  as 
the  sonorousness  of  their  gongs  ;  the  fine  polish 
and  perfect  surface  of  metallic  mirrors ;  certain  uses  of 
mordants  and  dyes  ;  a  marvellous  green  color,  extracted 
from  the  bark  of  a  tree  ;  a  white  wax,  the  secretion  of  an 
insect,  scarcely  known  to  our  entomologists,  to  obtain 
which  three  kinds  of  tree  are  cultivated  ;  white  copper, 
made  from  some  un revealed  mixture  of  metals.  The  spe- 
cial inventions  of  China  and  Japan  have  so  met  the  de- 
mands of  furniture,  dress,  nutrition,  and  thought,  as  to  be 
"always  the  core  and  axis  as  it  were  of  the  commerce  of 
the  world."  These  obligations  to  races  that  have  been 
regarded  as  most  isolated  show  that  the  destinies  of  a 
discovery  are  infinitely  beyond  the  ken  of  the  maker,  and 
pay  no  regard  to  the  limitations  of  the  people  whose  func- 
tion it  has  been  to  contribute  it  to  the  improving  hands 
of  others.  Of  the  disposition  to  adopt  foreign  arts  mani- 
fested by  the  Chinese,  I  need  only  mention  here  the  astro- 
nomical instruments  which  Ricci  found  in  the  Observatory 
at  Nan-king,3  the  introduction  of  glass  for  windows  and 
lamps,4  and  of  rock  crystal  for  spectacles  ;  the  brass  can- 
non cast  by  Verbiest  in  the  seventeenth  century ;  vaccina- 

1  See  Yule's  Notes  to  Marco  Polo;  and  Ibn  Batuta  (tr.  by  Lee),  ch.  xxiii. 

2  Industries  Anciennes  et  Modernes  de  P  Empire  Chinois,  Paris,  1869. 

3  Hue,  Christianity  in  China,  II.  121.  4  Williams,  II.  115. 


LABOR.  09 

tion,1  percussion  guns,  steamers,  men-of-war  of  foreign 
models  and  other  improvements,  readily  accepted  as  com- 
pensations for  the  bitter  experience  of  their  recent  wars 
with  European  powers. 

Many  of  their  practical  inventions  have  indicated  good 
sense  as  well  as  ingenuity  ;  such  as  a  curious,  yet  Practical 
simple,    instrument   for   mowing   and    reaping    at  inven- 
once  ; 2   straw  layers    in    brick  walls    to    keep  out 
damp  ; 3  fire-walls,  rising  above  the  partitions  of  buildings  ; 
fire-engines   and   their   appurtenances.      Their   small   ox- 
plough,  and  water-wheel  worked  by  hand,  however  rude, 
answer  their  purposes  admirably,  and   serve   better   than 
labor-saving   machinery  for  a  crowded  population.     They 
have  sunk  wells  to  obtain  gas  for  salt-boiling,  two  thousand 
feet  in  depth.4 

They  produce  a  transparent  substance  like  glass,  of 
sulphur,  lead,  and  various  alkalis,  and  mould  it  into  vases 
by  a  process  similar  to  glass-blowing.  They  reduce  silver, 
tin,  and  copper  from  the  ore,  and  obtain  steel  by  methods 
like  our  own.  They  have  wrought  magnificent  bronzes, 
and  attained  the  highest  brilliancy  of  vegetable  colors.5 
The  farmer  carries  his  implements  on  his  back,  yet  knows 
how  to  make  them  procure  for  him  the  best  harvests  in  the 
world.  They  train  the  pigeon  to  be  their  living  telegraph, 
and  to  carry  broker's  quotations  and  business  news  upon 
his  wings. 

Yet  with  all  this    ingenuity  their   defect   in   inventive 
wisdom  is  shown,  not  only  in  a  most  imperfect   Imper{eot 
development   of   many    of   their   own    discoveries,  develop- 
but  in  the  absence  of  even  such  an  article  as  soap ; 
in  slow  travelling ;  in  the  primitive  condition  of  naval  and 
military  arts,  of   sanitary  methods    and   materials.     They 
try  to  make  up  by  silks  and  furs  for  the  want  of  warmth 
• 

1  Davis,  III.  56.  »  Fleming,  p.  75.  »  Fleming,  p.  183. 

*  Cosmos,  I.,  note,  124.  8  Julien  and  Champion. 


QO  ELEMENTS. 

in  their  houses.  They  sleep  on  brick  ovens,  and  amidst 
the  gases  from  charcoal  braziers.1  Their  candles  are  offen- 
sive. Their  healing  art  is  based  only  on  the  study  of  the 
surface  of  the  body ;  and  the  Arabs,  sharp-eyed  in  such 
matters,  could  not  see  that  they  had  any  resources  beyond 
the  use  of  hot  caustics.  These  sanitary  deficiencies  seem 
to  be  a  survival  of  nomadic  habits,  like  the  obliquity  of 
the  eyelid  and  the  passion  for  fortune-telling.  Other 
causes  must  be  assigned  for  the  singular  failure  to  develop 
interests  to  which  they  have  been  peculiarly  devoted.  By 
what  psychological  defect  in  the  powers  of  analysis  can 
we  account  for  the  anomaly  of  a  great  people,  devoted  to 
industry  and  traffic,  who  have  never  maintained  a  currency 
of  uniform  value,  either  paper  or  metallic,  and  who  make 
all  large  settlements  in  bullion  ;  a  people,  intensely  absorbed 
in  reading,  writing,  and  printing  their  own  literature  for 
two  thousand  years,  who  have  never  invented  an  alphabet 
nor  a  printing  press,  nor  metallic  types  ?  The  result 
indeed,  apart  from  race  qualities,  must  be  in  no  slight 
measure  ascribed  to  mechanical  and  automatic  habits,  and 
to  the  minute  division  of  labor  in  this  prodigious  popula- 
tion ;  the  inferiority  of  whose  later  art  teaches  us  how 
dependent  is  every  element  of  integrity,  originality,  and 
beauty  on  the  workman's  perception  of  his  product  as  a 
whole,  and  on  his  handiwork's  expressing  the  love  and 
freedom  of  his  own  ideal,  not  the  treadmill  round  of  a 
human  machine ;  —  a  lesson  which  equally  mechanical 
methods  of  culture,  growing  out  of  very  different  causes, 
in  American  labor  and  art,  are  rendering  of  momentous 
import  to  the  moralist,  the  artisan,  and  the  citizen. 

1  Morache,  p.  41. 


III. 

SCIENCE 


SCIENCE. 


TN    attempting   to   form    a   judgment   of    the    scientific 
-*-     capacity  of  the  Chinese,  we  are  met  by  the  Diversit 
same  extreme  difference  of  testimony  as  on  other  oftesti- 
points    of    character.      Davis,    on    the   one    hand, 
asserts  that  they  "  set  no  value  on  abstract  science,  apart 
from    obvious   uses ; "  and    Meadows,  on    the   other,  that 
they  are  "  idealists,  who  despise  utility."     Our   inquiries 
lead  us  to  believe  that  both  are  right,  the  race  being  re- 
garded from  different  points   of  view.     Their  actual  per- 
formance is  to  a  great  extent  utilitarian  ;  while  the  theories 
of  Nature  which  they  carry  ready  made,  and  impose  upon 
the  facts,  suppress  practical  observation.     It  must  be  re- 
membered that  such  theories,  however  abstract  in  reality, 
are  not  held  to  be  abstractions,  but  fixed  and  normal  rules 
of  practical  utility ;  and  thus  limit  the  perception  of  what 
is  actually  useful.     The  generalizations  on  which  science 
depends  require  the  separation  of  its  elements  from  em- 
bodied facts  and  objects,  to  be  treated  abstractly  and  cor- 
related with  one  another  to  form  new  wholes,  not  existent 
in  any  actual  form.    And  this  abstraction  and  suspension  the 
mental  structure  of  the  Chinese  forbids.     The  Arabs,  not- 
ing this  defect  of  free  speculation,  denied  that  they  Mental 
had  any  sciences  whatever.    Their  pre-conceptions,  ^J^." 
nevertheless,  have  an  ideal  value,  as   originating  science. 


SCIENCE. 


TN    attempting   to   form    a   judgment   of    the    scientific 
•*•     capacity  of  the  Chinese,  we  are  met  by  the  Diversit 
same  extreme  difference  of  testimony  as  on  other  oftesti- 
points    of    character.      Davis,    on    the   one    hand, 
asserts  that  they  "  set  no  value  on  abstract  science,  apart 
from    obvious   uses ; "  and    Meadows,  on    the    other,  that 
they  are  "  idealists,  who  despise  utility."     Our   inquiries 
lead  us  to  believe  that  both  are  right,  the  race  being  re- 
garded from  different  points   of  view.     Their  actual  per- 
formance is  to  a  great  extent  utilitarian  ;  while  the  theories 
of  Nature  which  they  carry  ready  made,  and  impose  upon 
the  facts,  suppress  practical  observation.     It  must  be  re- 
membered that  such  theories,  however  abstract  in  reality, 
are  not  held  to  be  abstractions,  but  fixed  and  normal  rules 
of  practical  utility  ;  and  thus  limit  the  perception  of  what 
is  actually  useful.     The  generalizations  on  which  science 
depends  require  the  separation  of  its  elements  from  em- 
bodied facts  and  objects,  to  be  treated  abstractly  and  cor- 
related with  one  another  to  form  new  wholes,  not  existent 
in  any  actual  form.    And  this  abstraction  and  suspension  the 
mental  structure  of  the  Chinese  forbids.     The  Arabs,  not- 
ing this  defect  of  free  speculation,  denied  that  they  Mental 
had  any  sciences  whatever.    Their  pre-conceptions,  td^fo"~ 
nevertheless,  have  an  ideal  value,  as   originating  science. 


g  ELEMENTS. 

not  in  mere  considerations  of  advantage,  but  in  the  recog- 
nition of  sovereign  law.  The  difficulty  is  that  they  are 
rigid,  and  applied  to  phenomena  in  moulds  as  rigid  as 
themselves.  The  Chinese,  for  instance,  share  with  the 
Hindus  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  matter ;  but  instead  of 
holding  it  apart  for  speculative  development,  as  the  Hindus 
treat  ideal  premises,  they  apply  it  immediately  to  phe- 
nomena; so  that  their  studies  become  foreclosed  in  imag- 
inary transmutations  of  matter,  as  absolute  as  the  idea 
itself.  In  the  same  way,  the  dualism  of  the  Yin  and  Yang 
elements,  hereafter  to  be  described,  is  carried  through 
nature,  prescribing  fanciful  relations  in  place  of  experi- 
mental research  in  the  various  branches  of  science.  Here 
is  a  practical  tendency  checked  by  idealism  without  free- 
dom ;  and  an  ideal  tendency  fettered  by  the  grasp  of 
practicalisrri.  Analogous  conditions  occur  in  Western . 
thought,  where  they  differ  from  the  Chinese  only  in  not 
being  so  organic,  while  quite  as  real :  such  as  the  long 
persistence  of  Semitic  beliefs  derived  from  the  Bible,  in 
prescribing  the  paths  and  results  of  science  on  such  sub- 
jects as  creation,  development,  moral  and  physical  evil, 
death  and  birth,  miracle  and  law. 

While,  then,  both  the  ideal  and  practical  elements  of 
ideal  Pre-  Chinese  mind  prompt  to  the  study  of  Nature,  and 
concep-  to  the  home-sense  of  a  right  to  its  uses,  it  is  obvi- 
ous that  their  mutual  relations  are  far  from  favor- 
able to  the  natural  sciences.  It  has  immense  industry  in 
accumulating  details  on  the  one  hand,  but  according  to 
moral  or  philosophical  preconceptions  on  the  other.  Yet 
But  strong  °^  ^aw  as  Permanent  an^  unchanging,  its  steady, 
sense  of  regular  habit  is  clearly  perceptive  ;  and  this  is  the 
basis  of  its  rationalism.  It  thoroughly  believes  in 
the  essential  harmony  of  the  ^vorld  witJi  Jiuinan  nature. 
The  order  of  the  heavens  and  earth  is  not  divorced  from 
the  substance  of  human  reason.  That  direful  theological 


SCIENCE.  95 

chasm,  as  hostile  to  physical  and  social  science  as  to 
religious  liberty,  does  not  exist  for  the  Chinese.  The 
world  is  neither  man's- prison  nor  his  curse.  The  actual 
is  his  home.  Every  thing  his  faculties  can  recognize  is 
rational  and  true  knowledge,  and  its  truth  is  made  for  him 
to  use  ;  nor  does  he  doubt  the  reality  and  value  of  things, 
nor  the  certitude  of  his  own  perceptions.  As  little  does ' 
he  permit  himself  to  forget  what  rules  he  has  discerned  ; 
he  institutes  them  as  binding  methods  of  research  and 
production. 

In  some  respects,  therefore,  Chinese  science  will  be 
found  superior  to  that  of  most  other  races,  Semitic  and 
even  Aryan.  It  lacks  the  genius  which  depends  on  free- 
dom, and  the  depth  which  absorption  in  details  forbids  ; 
but  in  certain  directions  it  attains  a  truth,  fulness,  and 
ingenuity  not  to  be  found  elsewhere,  and  affords  firm 
basis  for  the  new  scientific  principles  which  are  emanci- 
pating the  thought  of  our  time. 

It  must  have  required  no  little  ardor  in  the  study  of 
Natural  History  to  produce  the  works  called 
"  Pents'ao,"  or  "  Herbals,"  — not  less  than  forty-two 
of  which  are  known  to  have  been  composed  since  the 
fourth  or  fifth  century.  These  are  not  mere  descriptions 
of  plants,  but  collections  of  data  covering  the  whole  range 
of  life,  though  with  special  relation  to  therapeutic  uses.1 
An  idea  of  their  character  may  probably  be  derived  from 
an  analysis  of  the  principal  work  of  the  kind,  dating  from 
the  sixteenth  century.2  Its  great  divisions  are  water,  fire, 
earths,  plants,  animals,  men.  The  inorganic  world  is  dis- 
tributed into  earths,  metals,  gems  (including  crystals), 
stones,  and  salts;  the  organic,  according  to- obvious  dis- 
tinctions of  place,  form,  and  qualities.  Several  hundred 

1  Schott,  Ch.  Literat.  p.  102 ;  Wylie,  p.  80. 

1  Schott;  Williams,  I.  288;  Davis,  ch.  xx. ;  Kidd's  China. 


96  ELEMENTS. 

families  are  mentioned  ;  classes  are  formed  on  something 
like  Linnaean  principles,  and  objects  arranged  according 
to  such  categories  as  —  where  they  live,  what  they  are  good 
for,  what  they  look  like,  and  on  the  sexual  theory  of  Yin 
and  Yang.  There  are  water  plants,  stone  plants,  marsh 
plants,  poisonous  plants,  twining  plants  ;-  trees  are  viewed 
'  as  aromatic,  lofty,  luxuriant,  or  flexible  ;  insects,  worms, 
and  scaleless  creatures  are  placed  together  ;  so  are  lizards, 
serpents,  fish  ;  then  come  creatures  with  shells,  which  are 
said  to  have  their  bones  outside,  —  certainly  a  presentiment 
of  real  science ;  then  the  feathered  tribes,  as  of  the  water, 
the  heath,  the  mountain,  the  forest.  Finally,  come  hairy 
animals  and  man.  A  kind  of  unity  is  given  all  these  data 
by  constant  reference  to  human,  and  especially  to  medical, 
uses. 

This  interest  in  the  healing  powers  of  Nature  is  traced 
to  the  first  emperors,  by  the  legends  ;  but  the 
whole  class  of  kindred  sciences,  especially  surgery, 
has  in  fact  been  obstructed  by  the  dread  of  dissecting,  or 
in  any  way  meddling  with  the  dead.1  The  theory  that 
each  organ  is  specially  related  to  some  one  element  of  na- 
ture forecloses  science,  as  it  did  in  Europe  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  It  is  believed  that  thought  proceeds  from  the  heart, 
that  the  soul  is  in  the  liver,  and  joy  in  the  stomach,  also 
respiration.  Such  nomad  fancies  survive,  as  that  the 
courage  of  brave  men  or  fierce  animals  is  imbibed  by  eat- 
ing their  gall ;  that  memory  is  improved  by  the  heart  of  a 
white  horse,  while  the  flesh  of  a  black  one  is  fatal.  The 
Tcheou-li  abounds  in  such  prescriptions,  besides  dividing 
animals  according  to  their  coverings  and  such  members 
as  the  neck,  wing,  or  mouth.2  The  test  of  physiological 
beliefs  is  their  antiquity.  The  "  Bible  of  Medicine  "  is  a 
work  ascribed  to  the  pre-historic  Hwang-ti,  and  certainly 
two  thousand  years  old.3 

1  Mayers,  however,  mentions  a  dissector  in  the  sixth  century,  B.C. 
*  B.  XLIII.  3  Schott,  105. 


SCIENCE.  97 

Yet  the  quantity  of  data  collected  is  incalculable.     The 
materia   medica   includes    most    of    the    substances    used 
by  ourselves,   often  with  analogy  in  special  applications.1 
The   "  Punts'ao "    refers    to   eight   hundred    authors.2      A 
"  Guide  to  Therapeutics  "  has  two  hundred  and  fifty  dia- 
grams and  twenty-one  thousand  prescriptions.     The  con- 
tents of  such  collections  must  be  of  very  various  quality. 
The  Chinese  cannot  have  toiled  so  long  and  so  earnestly 
without  important  results  ;  nor  can  so  vast  and  successful 
a  civilization  as  theirs  have  grown  up  without  extensive 
acquaintance  with  the  relations  of  the  human  body  to  its 
environment.     They  are  familiar  with  the  medicinal  effects 
of  camphor,  mercury,  rhubarb,  arsenic,  salts  ;  with  indica- 
tions of  the  pulse,  the  focus  of  their  therapeutics  ; 3  with 
acupuncture  ;  with  the  moxa.     Julien  finds  that  they  used 
anaesthetics  in  the  third  century.     The  bamboo  has  been 
very  skilfully  applied  for   stays    and    splints   in  surgery.4 
Small-pox  has  been  studied  with  attention,  and  inoculation 
practised  for  centuries.5     No  distinction  is  made  between 
arterial  and  venous  blood,  nor  is  the  special  function  of 
the  heart,  as  the  regulator  and  centre  of  the  vital  fluid, 
comprehended ;    but    the   fact    of   a   systemic   circulation 
seems  to  have  been  recognized,  and   its  rate  measured.6 
The  existence  and  force  of  subtle  fluids  (called  airs)  in  the 
body,  as  in  the  forms  of  nature,  is  fully  perceived,  though 
not  scientifically  developed.     The  spinal  marrow  is  traced 
to  its  expansion  in  the  brain,  called  "  the  sea  of  marrow." 
A  current  belief  in  the  unity  of  man  with  Nature  involved 
the  discovery  that  he  is  a  microcosm. 

That  the  Chinese  are,  as  Medhurst  says,  "  a  quack-ridden 

1  China  Review,  Sept.  1874;  Lockhart,  p.  229.  *  Wylie,  p.  80. 

8  For  their  theory  of  the  pulses,  which  they  refer  to  the  various  internal  organs,  see 
Duhalde,  History  of  China,  III.  366.  *  Lay,  p.  224. 

0  Wylie,  80;  Am.  Or.  Soc.  Journal,  May,  1869.  Vaccination,  introduced  into  Canton 
in  1805,  has  been  widely  practised  ever  since.  Lockhart,  p.  120. 

6  Girard,  II.  329. 

7 


98  ELEMENTS. 

race,"  is  obvious ;  yet  that  they  are  more  so  than  other 
races  is  not  so  certain.  Medical  instruction  consists  mainly 
in  the  study  of  a  few  ancient  treatises  ; l  but  the  Pe-king 
"Gazette"  protested  against  this  system  in  the  national  col- 
leges of  medicine,  in  1866,  and  called  for  a  better.  The 
physician  is  apt  to  practise  as  he  pleases,  according  to  old 
receipts  preserved  in  families,2  and  finds  his  credit  mainly 
in  the  length  of  his  ancestral  line  of  doctors.  The  literati 
have  been  wont  to  hold  him  in  contempt,  and  most  of  the 
profession  have  been  slaves  or  freedmen.  For  lunacy  the 
Chinese  have  no  remedy ;  they  scarce  attempt  its  treat- 
ment. In  a  sense,  then,  medicine  is  here  in  its  infancy. 
Is  it  not  so  everywhere  ?  When  one  considers  how  little 
light  we  possess  on  the  treatment  of  the  most  common 
diseases  and  the  most  destructive  appetites,  with  all  our 
microscopic  science  and  endless  nomenclature,  he  cannot 
but  think  that  some  future  day  will  look  on  our  pretensions 
to  medical  wisdom,  much  as  we  now  do  on  the  Chinese 
doctor,  who  plies  his  old  treatises  of  Hwang-ti,  and  drives 
his  patient  to  "hug  his  own  coffin  for  consolation." 

It  would  be  hard  to  say  of  a  people  who  have  combined  the 
finer  forces  of  Nature  in  so  many  marvellous  ways 
f'  as  the  Chinese,  that  they  are  ignorant  of  chemistry. 
Yet  their  practical  skill  far  outruns  their  theoretical  knowl- 
edge. They  have  rich  store  of  subtle  and  brilliant  proc- 
esses ;  but  no  minute  analysis  of  elements,  and  no  large 
generalization  of  results.  These  devotees  of  concrete 
labors  are  so  absorbed  in  arts  of  manipulation,  that  no 
fresh  speculative  movement  is  possible.  Their  ideal  chem- 
istry remains  therefore,  to  a  great  extent,  in  the  stage  of 
alchemy ;  and  has  been  derived,  in  part,  from  Arabic  and 
Byzantine  sources,  .though  greatly  promoted  as  a  native 

1  See  Rev.  des  Deux  Monde 's,  LXX.  2  De  Mas,  I.  45. 


SCIENCE.  99 

product    by   the   growth    of    Taoism   in    the    fourth    cen- 
tury, B.C. 

The  antiquity  of  astronomical  science  in  China,  as  re- 
corded in  the  oldest  classics,  and  asserted  by  the  Jes- 

Astronomy. 

uit  missionaries  of  the  last  two  centuries,  who  are  in 
turn  endorsed  by  Biot,  has  of  late  been  seriously  doubted. 
The  Chinese  has  not  power  of  pure  abstraction  to  pursue 
the  mathematics  into  their  relations  to  the  laws  of  motion 
in  space.  His  written  language  has  not  the  definiteness 
requisite  for  mathematical  expression.  Astronomy  is 
therefore  still  in  its  earlier  stages,  and  an  astrological 
scheme  is  annually  put  forth  by  the  Astronomical  Board 
at  Pe-king,  fixing  times  and  seasons  for  every  enterprise, 
rite,  or  task.  But  there  was  certainly  a  practical  signifi- 
cance in  the  astrology  of  the  primitive  Chinese,  who 
watched  the  stars  while  they  tilled  their  soil,  with  a  dis- 
tinct sense  of  close  connection  between  the  movements  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  and  the  seasons  and  products  of  the 
earth.  It  was  an  intuition  of  that  unity  of  the  cosmos,  on 
which  the  largest  theory  and  the  most  practical  utility 
alike  depend.  Upon  the  whole  there  was  a  sobriety  and 
truthfulness  in  their  sense  of  these  physical  relations  and 
laws,  hardly  to  be  found  in  any  other  ancient  people.  We 
may  not  believe  a  legend  in  the  Shu-king,  that  the  mythical 
emperor  Tao,  twenty-four  hundred  years  B.C.,  sent  forth 
messengers  to  the  four  quarters  of  space,  to  determine  the 
equinoctial  and  solstitial  times,  for  regulation  of  the  labors 
of  husbandry,  and  the  customs  of  the  people  ; l  though  to 
modern  knowledge  of  Assyrian  and  Egyptian  antiquity 
there  is  nothing  improbable  in  the  tale.  It  may  not  be 
proved  that  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes  was  noted  by 
the  public  astronomers  of  those  early  times,  and  months 

1  Shu-king^  Pt.  I.  ch.  i.     A  passage  which  Julien  supposes  to  have  a  popular  ast~;?->mical 
sense. 


IOO  ELEMENTS. 

intercalated  to  bring  the  solar  and  lunar  periods  into  har- 
mony ;  nor  that  the  ecliptic  was  divided  into  twenty-four, 
afterwards  twenty-eight  mansions  (sieu)  to  mark  the  daily 
progress  of  lunar  revolution,  according  to  a  system  well 
known  in  later  Chinese  astronomy,  and  on  the  origin  of 
whose  main  principles  in  China,  India,  or  Chaldea,  there  is 
now  such  warm  discussion  among  Orientalists.1.  The  nam- 
ing of  certain  circumpolar  stars,  and  the  determination  of 
the  length  of  the  year  in  days,  are  less  improbable.  But 
the  fact  that  Chinese  belief  is  unanimous  in  referring  these 
discoveries  back  to  such  early  periods  is  at  least  important 
as  showing  a  national  interest  in  such  phenomena,  which 
might  well  have  resulted  in  much  real  knowledge  at  a  very 
remote  epoch.  Biot's  theory  of  these  claims  to  early  dis- 
covery on  the  part  of  the  Chinese  is,  however,  opposed  by 
a  stronger  probability  that  they  had  not  arrived  at  these 
important  scientific  data,  till  about  the  time  of  the  Han  dy- 
nasty, from  the  second  century  before,  to  the  second  after, 
Christ.  At  this  time  the  native  astronomy  was  recon- 
structed, partly  from  tradition  and  partly  from  fresh  knowl- 
ledge  imported  from  Greece  and  India.2  The  famous  sixty 
years'  cycle  does  not  occur  in  early  times.3  The  meteoric 
falls  recorded  for  a  thousand  years  begin  in  the  seventh 
century,  B.C.4  The  mathematical  science  of  the  older 
works  is  very  rude  and  undeveloped.5  Four  hundred  and 
sixty  eclipses  are  recorded  (singularly  enough,  not  one  from 
2169  B.C.  to  776  B.C.)  ;  but  most  of  them  have  failed  of  veri- 
fication, and  the  oldest  cannot  be  identified  as  having  been 
visible  in  China.  The  Tcheou-li,  a  work  due  largely,  it  is 
probable,  to  these  reconstructions,  reports  of  the  old  Tcheou 


1  Biot,  Journ.  dcs  Savants,  1849,  1861  ;  Weber,    Trans.  Berl.  Acad.,  1860-61  ;  Whitney 
Journ.  Am.    Or.   Soc.    vin  ;    Burgess,   Ibid.;    Carre,  L* Ancien  Orient.    I.   488;  Amyot, 
Mem.  d  Miss.  II.  104. 

2  Burgess,  Amer.  Or.  Soc.,  1866,  p.  325  ;  Chalmers  in  Leaf's  Proleg.  to  Shu-king. 
8  Piath,  Bay.  Akad.  1867.  *  Cosmos,  I.  118. 

8  Tcheoupei  trans,  by  Gaubil,  Lettres  Edifiantes. 


SCIENCE.  101 

dynasty  a  thousand  years  back,  that  it  had  a  grand  astro- 
nomical officer  with  a  corps  of  service,  whose  function  was 
to  record  the  celestial  changes,  and  divide  the  land  into 
dependencies  of  certain  asterisms.1  Writers,  Jesuit  and 
native,  of  the  last  century  claim  that  the  rotundity  of  the 
earth  and  the  difference  of  diameters  were  known  many 
centuries  ago  ;  also  the  suspension  of  the  earth  in  space : 
but  these  statements  require  proof.2  Biot  has  collected  the 
records  of  comets  from  the  seventh  century  B.C.  to  the 
seventeenth  A.C.,  out  of  Ma-touan-lin  ;  and  for  all  of  them, 
down  to  those  of  the  fourteenth  century,  these  Chinese 
data  have  furnished  elements  to  European  calculations.3 
But  the  data  have  not  been  tested,  and  their  real  value 
seems  to  be  in  their  indications  of  a  deep  interest  in  celes- 
tial phenomena  at  a  time  when  Europe  was  too  barbarian 
to  note  any  thing  in  comets  but  signs  of  ruin.  The  popu- 
lar belief  in  China  and  elsewhere  that  an  eclipse  was  the 
effort  of  a  monster  to  swallow  the  sun,  who  must  be  driven 
off  with  gestures  and  noise,  was  doubtless  in  part  symbol- 
ical ;  and  must  not  cover  the  fact  that  there  was  always 
an  Astronomical  Board,  noting  the  progress  of  the  eclipse 
and  computing  its  elements  with  rationalistic  scientific 
interest. 

It  is  at  least  clear  that  the  Chinese  have  been  busy  reg- 
istering facts  of  celestial  observation  during  the  greater 
part  of  their  history.  Their  mechanical  appliances  must 
have  been  very  imperfect ;  yet  they  claim  to  have  had  ar- 
millary  spheres  as  early  as  the  second  century,  B.C.,  arid  to 
have  constructed  celestial  globes,  with  water  machinery  to 
represent  apparent  movements,  in  the  eleventh  of  our  era.4 
Astronomical  charts  and  atlases,  too,  were  common,  with 
distances  of  the  constellations  carefully  marked.6  It  is  true 

1  Tcheou-li,  B.  xxvi.  ;  Wuttke,  II.  92. 

*  Girard,JI.  318;  Wylie,  p.  86. 

8  Humboldt's  Cosmos,  I.  92,  note  42  ;  and  IV.  185,  186. 

«  Wylie,  p.  86.  »  Ibid.  p.  104. 


IO2  ELEMENTS. 

the  Jesuits,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  found  them  unable 
to  measure  the  shadow  on  a  sun-dial ;  corrected  their  cal- 
endar, constructed  instruments,  and  taught  them  scientific 
methods.  But  it  was  precisely  their  astronomical  science 
that  drew  the  attention  of  the  Chinese  government  to  these 
learned  men,  and  secured  them  high  positions  of  trust. 
Schaal  found  Chinese  scholars  ready  to  join  him  in  draw- 
ing up  a  great  work  on  astronomy,  which  however  adhered 
to  the  Ptolemaic  system.1  Later  missionaries  have  taught 
them  the  ellipticity  of  the  orbits,  the  sun's  parallax,  Kep- 
ler's laws,  logarithms,  —  finding  willing  ears.2  Perhaps 
much  of  this  teaching  was  anticipated  ;  at  least  the  intel- 
lectual and  official  conditions  of  it  were  prepared,  and 
even  familiar.3 

That  they  seem  to  have  used  a  decimal  system  of  notation 
at  a  very  early  period  is  no  more  than  can  be  said  of 
almost  all  other  races  ;  counting  by  the  hands  and 
toes  being  the  earliest  stage  of  numeration.  Of  more 
importance  are  arithmetical  works  two  thousand  years  old ; 
books  of  mensuration,  trigonometry,  and  the  elements  of 
the  calculus ;  the  extraction  of  roots  to  the  thirteenth 
power,  and  the  solution  of  unknown  quantities  by  mathe- 
matical rules,  five  and  six  centuries  ago.4  Father  Ricci 
was  aided  in  his  translation  of  Euclid  by  a  native  scholar 
(1608) ;  and  another  during  the  present  dynasty  prepared 
a  supplement  on  Geometry  ;  while  a  third  was  the  chief 
originator  of  the  recent  completion  of  the  Euclid  by  Mr. 
Wylife.  Mr.  Wylie's  list  proves  how  carefully  the  later 
Chinese  have  preserved  their  astronomical  and  mathemat- 
ical treasures,  reviewing  them  from  time  to  time,  and  crit- 
ically reporting  their  condition,  in  theory  and  practice.  Of 
such  reports  a  great  Thesaurus  was  published  in  the  reign 

1  The  beautiful  astronomical  instruments,  so  well-preserved  in  the  observatory  at  Pe-king, 
and  described  by  Duhalde  and  others,  are  memorials  of  the  science  and  artistic  taste  of  Father 
Verbiest. 

2  Wylie,  p.  89.  3  Lockhart,  pp.  342-352.  *  Wylie,  p.  94. 


SCIENCE.  103 

of  Kien-lung.  Elaborate  collections  of  formulae  for  calcu- 
lation have  been  made  down  to  the  present  day,  when 
there  is  no  lack  of  native  mathematicians  in  China. 

It  is,  of  course,  no  evidence  of  the  contrary  that  the 
masses  still  believe  the  earth  to  be  flat,  bounded  by  four 
seas,  and  construct  fanciful  distances  of  the  sun  and  stars 
down  to  feet  and  even  inches.1  The  current  cycle  of  sixty 
lunar  years  is  curiously  constructed  and  named,  combining 
twelve  kinds  of  animals,  five  elements,  five  colors,  and  the 
male  and  female  principles.  But  there  were  in  old  time 
three  ways  of  representing  the  sky :  the  first,  as  a  concave 
sphere  ;  the  second,  as  a  globe  with  stars  on  the  outside  ; 
and  the  third,  as  undefined  space.2 

It  is  far  from  true  that  the  exact  sciences  are  wanting  in 
China,  though  there  must  be  great  hindrance  to  their 
growth,  not  only  in  the  difficulty  of  expressing  distinct 
and  unequivocal  ideas  in  the  written  characters,  which 
have  great  scope  of  meaning,  but  still  more  in  the  ten- 
dency to  formulize  in  sets  of  numbers  unchangeably  fixed 
and  predetermined,  so  that  science  and  mythology  cannot 
be  fully  separated. 

Of  historical  data  the  pragmatic  Chinese  possess  an  un- 
limited amount;  of  the  science  of  history  a  bet- 

History. 

ter  conception  than  most  ancient  peoples,  since 
they  have  always  carefully  registered  events  in  their  rela- 
tion to  causes  and  effects.  But  this  correct  basis  is  dis- 
turbed by  being  obliged  to  adjust  itself  to  a  theory  that 
events  proceed  from  the  maintenance  or  violation  of  a 
pre-ordained  harmony  between  earth  and  heaven,  the  fixed 
norm  of  which  is  a  set  of  institutions  established  in  the 
earliest  time.  Behind  all  this  mixture  of  history  with 
fable,  however,  stands  a  very  clear  conception  of  moral 

1  Chalmers,  in  Legge 's  Proleg.  to  Shu-king. 

2  On  the  various   estimates  of  Chinese  Astronomical  Science,  see  Seances  du  Congres 
Internat.  des  Orientalistes  (1873),  I.  p.  290. 


IO4  ELEMENTS. 

sequence,  in  national  penalty  and  reward,  according  to  un- 
changeable right.  Full  responsibility  of  nations  and  their 
governors  to  forces  of  moral  and  spiritual  order  as  supreme 
is  the  ideal  of  historic  justice.  Of  the  complexity  and 
variety  of  human  relation  and  motive  the  uniformity  of 
the  national  type  allows  less  perception.  Here  as  else- 
where, the  main  aim  is  to  collect  details  ;  and  the  passion 
for  calendaring  facts  has  kept  historic  documents  nearer 
to  sober  truth  than  those  of  any  other  Oriental  nation, 
with  perhaps  the  exception  of  the  Egyptian. 

The  Annals,  secretly  drawn  up  during  each  reign,  and 
making  known  at  the  opening  of  each  the  character  of 
that  which  preceded  it,  —  written  by  officials  without  fear 
of  punishment  and  under  solemn  injunction,  as  a  part  of 
the  national  religion,  to  set  down  the  truth  about  their 
rulers, — are  the  most  valuable  documents  in  ancient  his- 
torical literature.  The  great  historiographers  were  not 
mere  annalists,  but  moralists  and  statesmen ;  most  of 
them  had  struggles  with  the  government  independent  of 
their  work  as  reporters,  and  the  biographies  of  the  prin- 
cipal men  among  them  as  drawn  by  Remusat  are  a  won- 
derful record  of  heroic  conduct  amidst  vicissitudes  of 
fortune.1  The  great  work  of  De  Mailla,  published  in 
twelve  quarto  volumes  by  the  Abbe  Grosier,  1777-1783, 
is  translated  from  a  compilation  of  these  Annals  by  the 
historiographer  Sse-ma-kouang,  and  contains  but  a  frac- 
tion of  the  whole.  Sse-ma-thsian's  "  Historical  Memoirs" 
(Sse-ki),  compiled  in  the  first  century,  are  surpassed  by 
the  "  Investigations  "  of  Ma-touan-lin,  thirteen  centuries 
afterwards  ;  which  cover  thirty-seven  centuries,  and  form 
the  treasury  whence  have  been  taken,  often  without  ac- 
knowledgment, almost  all  European  accounts  of  Chinese 
history  and  archaeology,  and  of  the  races  connected  there- 
with. In  this  marvellous  monument  of  historic  labor  all 

1  Remusat,  Nouv.  Mtlanges  Asiatiques^  Vol.  II. 


SCIENCE.  105 

the  facts  are  classified,  their  sources  indicated,  the  authors 
discussed,  all  related  documents  transferred  directly  from 
the  original  sources  ;  and  not  an  important  branch  of  the 
national  civilization  is  omitted  or  lightly  treated.1  Twenty- 
four  Dynastic  Histories  contain  chronological  records, 
memoirs  on  every  department  of  science,  and  narratives, 
personal  and  ethnic.2  That  of  the  Ming  dynasty  is  in 
three  hundred  and  thirty-two  books  ;  that  of  the  Sung 
II.,  in  four  hundred  and  ninety-six.  Never  had  a  people 
such  materials  for  history,  —  vases,  monuments,  inscrip- 
tions ;  official  records,  memorials,  and  State  papers  ; 
repertories  of  laws,  treatises,  criticisms  ;  biographies, 
lists,  and  registers  ;  libraries  and  catalogues  without  end. 
Never  is  lost  a  scrap  of  official  writing,  or  the  record  of 
a  fact ;  and  the  incessant  revisal  and  reconstruction  has, 
in  the  main,  been  guided  by  a  sincere  desire  to  preserve 
the  truth.  The  Chinese  eye  is  in  search  of  the  actual ; 
even  poetry  must  point  to  fact.  The  oldest  odes  of  the 
Shi  and  the  Shu  claim  historic  basis,  and  the  abundance 
of  lyrical  effusions  in  all  periods  testifies  to  a  popular 
desire  to  celebrate  the  facts  of  actual  life.8 

Genuine  criticism  is  by  no  means  wanting.     The  ration- 
alistic spirit  keeps  watch  on  the  mytho-poetic,  and 

Criticism. 

counteracts  to  some  extent  the  conservative  traits 
of  literature.  The  study  of  the  Classics  has  been  a  work 
of  elimination.  Confucius  himself  is  believed  to  have  set 
the  example  by  reducing  the  hundred  chapters  of  the 
Shu-king  to  fifty,  and  selecting  for  preservation  only  three 
hundred  and  eleven  of  the  three  thousand  pieces  of  verse 
originally  contained  in  the  Book  of  Songs.  The  Li-ki  has 
been  reduced  to  one  sixth  of  its  former  dimensions.  The 

1  Plath.    Schule   und   Unterricht  bei   den   Alt.     Chinesen,    Bay.  AkaJ.,    Juli,    1868; 
R&nusat,  Nouv.  Mel.  Asiatigues,  Vol.  II. ;  Schott,  p.  109-111,  60. 

2  Wylie,  p.  12. 

8  The  Romans  also  had  their  Book  of  Annals  ;  but  it  was  not  instituted  till  the  third  cen- 
tury, B.C.;  Mommsen,  B.  II.,  ch.  ix. 


IO6  ELEMENTS. 

authenticity  of  these  Classic  Books  has  been  discussed, 
and  by  the  keenest  minds  denied.  Sse-ma-kouang  in  the 
tenth  century  rejected  all  the  national  traditions  previous 
to  Fo-hi.  Sse-ma-thsian,  like  Herodotus,  puts  into  his  story 
all  the  old  legends  of  useful  inventions  by  primeval  kings, 
but  simply  as  historical  traditions.1  The  fantastic  fables 
about  lines  of  kings  previous  to  Hwang-ti,  quoted  by  Pre- 
mare 2  to  discredit  the  historical  value  of  Chinese  records, 
are  products  of  a  mediaeval  degraded  form  of  the  Tao-sse 
school,  and  rejected  by  the  national  historians  ;  though 
none  the  less  accepted  by  many  Christian  missionaries, 
as  vestiges  of  Biblical  characters  and  events. 

Mere  chronological  calendars,  like  the  early  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicles,  are  indeed  the  common  form  of  annals  ;  but  a 
more  philosophical  construction  is  not  lacking,  which  fol- 
lows the  order  not  of  dates  merely,  but  of  events  and 
principles.3  The  scientific  defect  is  absence  of  variety  and 
development ;  neither  of  which  is  possible,  because  all  this 
recording  is  not  pursuit  of  a  free  ideal,  nor  quest  of  fresh 
adventure  and  discovery  in  the  world  of  mind,  but  effort  to 
conform  to  a  rule  already  ordained.  To  this  rule  nothing 
can  be  added  ;  from  this  nothing  dropped.  The  best  criti- 
cism, therefore,  lacks  the  element  of  surprise.  To  find  an 
old  belief  erroneous  does  not  here  mean,  as  with  us,  to 
become  inspired  with  a  sense  of  light  wholly  new,  but  to 
confirm  a  truth  that  is  older  and  more  obvious  still.  The 
narrow  eyelid  never  expands  with  wonder  before  discovery. 
The  new  event  is  but  another  stone  cast  on  the  heap  of 
instances  under  a  prescribed  law,  as  well  known  from  the 
beginning  to  all  men  as  the  yearly  rise  of  the  Ho-ang-ho. 
Original  and  suggestive  presentment  of  the  facts  is  thus 
almost  impossible.  We  honor  the  courage  of  the  censor 

1  On  the  critical  care  and  fidelity  of  Sse-ma-thsian,  see  Remusat  Mem.  del'Acad.   des 
Inscriptions,  vii.  4. 

2  Introd.  to  P.  Gaubil's  translation  of  the  Shu-king ;  also  see  De  Mailla,  History,  I.  17. 
8  Schott,  Chinese  Literature,  p.  75. 


SCIENCE. 

who  writes  down  the  truth  regardless  of  consequences,  and 
the  critic  who  weighs  with  tact  and  skill  the  evidences  of 
a  record  ;  but  the  biographical  result  is  after  all,  to  a  great 
extent,  a  monotonous  and  wearisome  nebula  of  names  and 
incessantly  repeated  situations,  pervaded  by  a  chronic  wail 
over  the  shortcoming  of  the  present  in  comparison  with 
the  past.  Even  here,  however,  the  taste  for  biography  has 
great  value,  —  always  the  best  basis  for  history.  There  is 
no  end  of  Chinese  Plutarchs  ;  and  as  the  emperors  receive 
a  new  name  after  death,  so  the  great  and  the  little  men, 
—  rulers,  scholars,  inventors,  heads  and  disciples  of  sects, 
military  and  rebel  chiefs, — live  again  in  their  collected 
conversations,  plots,  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  held  up  for 
the  gratitude  or  contempt  of  millions.1 

We  should  expect  that  chronology  would  be  found  per- 
fected in  Chinese  literature.  The  effort  to  arrange  chro- 
and  harmonize  details  is  here  instinctive,  and  there  nology- 
is  no  history  whose  designations  of  time  are  more  distinct 
for  a  space  of  at  least  twenty-five  hundred  years.  Chron- 
ological tables  are,  in  fact,  abundant ;  that  of  Kang-hi, 
issued  in  1715,  is  in  one  hundred  volumes.  It  is  curious 
however  that  the  old  Classics,  though  purporting  to  be 
historical,  have  no  chronological  arrangement.  The  cycle 
of  sixty  years  —  although  ascribed  in  late  times  to  Hwang-ti, 
and  even  to  Fo-hi — is  not  found  in  the  Shu-king,  where 
the  only  cycle  chronicles  the  days.  In  the  old  time,  epochs 
were  marked  by  names  of  sovereigns  and  length  of  reigns, 
of  course  often  legendary,  and  based  on  astronomical  con- 
ditions.2 Confucius  and  Mencius,  careful  students  of  rec- 
ords, afford  the  best  data  for  periods  that  preceded  them. 
The  Tchun-tsieu,  or  "  Spring  and  Autumn  Classic "  of 
Confucius,  is  a  continuation  of  the  Shu-king,  and  con- 

1  See  Plath's  analyses  of  many  of  these  biographies,  Bay.  Akad.^  Feb.,  1868. 

2  Legge,  Proleg.  to  Shu-king,  ch.  iii.  81. 


IO8  ELEMENTS. 

sists  of  a  very  meagre  list  of  names,  events,  and  dates  ; 
whose  value,  if  we  may  judge  from  Legge's  careful  com- 
parisons of  the  text  with  its  best  commentary,  is  mainly 
chronological.  The  uniformity  natural  to  reports  of  events 
in  a  community  so  prosaic,  and  so  careful  of  what  is 
ascertained;  the  immemorial  habit  of  registering  facts  at 
the  moment,  and  connecting  every  record  with  the  regular 
return  of  times  and  seasons,  and  with  the  notation  of  nat- 
ural phenomena,  —  give  ground  for  great  confidence  in  the 
main  points  of  their  chronology,  even  to  remote  epochs  ; 
and  while  nothing  can  be  more  positive  than  their  lists  of 
dates  commencing  with  the  eighth  century,  B.C.,  —  the 
opening  time  of  the  Greek  Olympiads  also,  and  of  positive 
Hebrew  history,  —  there  is  almost  if  not  quite  equal  cer- 
tainty for  such  data,  even  relating  to  earlier  dynasties,  as 
are  confined  to  names  of  rulers,  lengths  of  reigns,  and 
records  of  important  events  ;  these  being  often  confirmed 
by  a  great  amount  of  independent  testimony.  Thus  the 
existence  of  the  Chinese  people  more  than  two  thousand 
years  B.C.,  the  close  of  the  Shu-king  in  769  B.C.,  and  the 
length  of  the  great  Tcheou  dynasty,  1 122-249  B-c->  are  posi- 
tive landmarks  in  this  vast  expanse  of  time  ;  and  the  lists 
of  dynasties  and  their  several  kings,  covering  with  perfect 
distinctness  every  moment  of  history,  may  reasonably  be 
trusted  for  at  least  three  thousand  years.  The  ante-Con- 
fucian literature,  however,  rests  on  data  which  are  ex- 
tremely unsatisfactory  ;  and  with  all  our  respect  for  the 
patient  researches  of  Dr.  Plath,  we  can  hardly  feel  on  safe 
ground  beyond  the  opening  of  the  Tcheou  dynasty  twelve 
hundred  years  B.C. 

The  genius  of  the  Chinese  makes  trustworthy  chro- 
nology easy  of  construction,  just  as  the  opposite  qualities 
of  Hindu  mind  have  darkened  and  confused  that  of 
India.  Chu-hi  strikes  the  key-note  of  their  success  when 
he  bases  the  possibility  of  chronological  science  on  the 


SCIENCE.  109 

regularity  of  natural  processes,  and  pronounces  time  to  be 
man's  conception  of  the  movement  of  the  universe. 

What  chronology  is  for  time,  geography  is  for  space. 
The  passion  of  the  Chinese  for  registering  the  Geog- 
physical  features  of  their  great  empire  has  been  raphy* 
extremely  productive  ;  but  it  does  not  amount  to  scientific 
genius.  Their  geographical  descriptions  are  here  but 
heaps  of  well-arranged  facts,  without  reference  to  large 
relations,  general  ideas,  or  constructive  laws.1  Yet  in  no 
department  have  they  been  more  serviceable  to  science 
than  in  their  careful  observation  of  localities,  their  minute 
itineraries,  their  full  descriptions  of  lands,  productions, 
climates,  races.2  Their  researches  on  the  mountain  sys- 
tems of  Central  Asia  greatly  aided  Humboldt  in  his  study 
of  that  region.3  The  records  of  the  Pilgrims,  Fa-hian  and 
Hiouen-thsang,  are  of  great  interest.  Reports  of  officials 
and  commissions  to  neighboring  countries  are  generally 
models  of  compact,  simple,  business-like  statement,  and 
reach  back  for  two  thousand  years. 

It  is  not  easy  to  say  when  so  industrious  a  people  began 
to  map  out  the  features  of  the  land  they  cleared  and  tilled. 
The  Shu-king  has  a  famous  chapter  descriptive  of  the 
nine  provinces  of  Yu's  primitive  Chinese  empire  ;  their 
limits,  products,  natural  phenomena,  soils,  tributes,4  —  per- 
haps in  its  details  a  "  romance,"  but  certainly  very  old, 
and  pointing  to  the  indispensable  conditions  of  all  Chinese 
industry,  even  from  earliest  times.  The  "  Nine  Vases  of 
Yu,"  inscribed  with  charts  of  the  empire,  are  doubtless 
another  mythical  expression  of  the  same  truth.  A  later 
work,  the  Tcheou-li,  ascribes  to  the  geographical  depart- 

1  Schott,  49,  50. 

2  See  especially  "  Notices  sur  les  pays  et  les  peuples  itrangeres\  tirees  des  geographies  et 
des  annales  Chinoises,"  by  Julien  (Journal  Asiatique,  1846-47);  also  for  specimens,  Bret- 
schneider,  Chinese  Mediaval  Travellers  (Shanghai,  1875). 

8  Aspects  of  Nature,  p.  76.  *  Shu-king,  Pt.  III.  i. 


I  IO  ELEMENTS. 

ment  of  this  dynasty  a  corps  of  two  hundred  and  twenty 
officers  !  Ma-touan-lin  used  many  early  topographical  works 
in  preparing  his  great  Cyclopaedia.1  Minute  descriptions 
of  the  different  provinces  have  been  revised  and  rewritten, 
some  of  them  from  ten  to  fifteen  times.  From  the  fourth 
century  to  the  present  time,  all  Asia  to  the  borders  of 
Persia  has  been  under  the  patient  and  steady  pencils  of 
Chinese  geography.2  The  "•  Complete  Survey  of  the  Em- 
pire," in  one  hundred  and  eight  volumes,  printed  in  1744, 
covers  boundaries,  climate,  history,  natural  phenomena  ; 
manners  and  customs,  towns,  edifices,  canals,  schools, -and 
libraries  ;  area,  population,  official  list ;  mountains  and 
rivers,  antiquities,  castles,  passes,  bridges,  dams,  monu- 
ments, temples  ;  distinguished  persons,  religious  and  offi- 
cial ;  and  productions  of  the  soil,  for  every  province  and 
every  dependency.  In  accumulating  these  materials,  Chi- 
nese, Mongols,  and  Manchus  have  been  equally  diligent, 
and  the  researches  of  scientific  commissions  have  gone 
hand  in  hand  with  military  and  commercial  expeditions, 
down  to  the  present  day.  Of  the  accuracy  of  the  earlier 
geographies  there  is  reason  to  doubt  ;  the  first  clear  ideas 
of  the  form  of  the  earth  and  the  measurement  of  its  sur- 
face being  given  by  the  Jesuits,  whose  survey  of  China, 
in  1707-1717,  is  still  in  high  repute.  Wylie,  however, 
regards  the  testimony  of  Chinese  books  about  China  as  in 
general  unimpeachable,  and  even  in  their  reference  to  for- 
eign countries  as  not  more  given  to  fable  than  our  West- 
ern literature  on  kindred  topics.3  They  certainly  bear  very 
favorable  comparison  with  the  old  Greek  and  Roman  ge- 
ographers, who  wrote  of  the  far  East ;  with  Ptolemy  and 
Strabo  and  Ctesias  and  Pliny ;  with  all  map-makers  and 
travellers  during  the  Middle  Ages,  and  even  down  to 
recent  times.4 

1  Schott,  p.  80.       2  Ritter  on  Asia,  in  Knight's  Store  of  KnowL,  p.  172.       8  Wylie,  p.  54. 
4  Behaim's  Maj>  (Niirnberg,  1492),  placed  Zipangu  a  short  distance  west  of  the  Cape 
Verd  Isles  ;  in  later  maps  it  was  just  beyond  Cuba. 


SCIENCE.  1 1 1 

But  it  is  in  the  science  of  government  that  this  race 
of  organizers  have  done  their  best  work,  anticipat- 

Politics. 

ing  the  West  by  many  centuries,  both  in  noble 
definition  of  public  duties,  and  in  practical  construction  of 
the  political  and  civil  elements.  It  is  a  wonderful  subject, 
worthy  of  all  study,  —  this  tribe  of  Mongolic  settlers,  bear- 
ing within  them  the  prophetic  gifts  of  industry  and  mutual 
service  in  a  remote  antiquity ;  gradually  transforming  the 
flooded  wastes  and  wandering  races  of  Eastern,  Asia  into 
a  vast  and  orderly  civilization,  under  more  or  less  cen- 
tralized administrative  rules  ;  and  evolving  steadfast  con- 
ceptions of  civil  order,  of  equal  rights,  of  law  above  personal 
caprice ;  of  official  functions  open  to  all  competitors  and 
due  only  to  the  best ;  of  personal  responsibilities  and  pub- 
lic tests,  instituted  and  maintained  with  greater  or  less 
fidelity  while  so  much  of  the  West  was  in  a  state  of  bar- 
barism. Here,  at  least,  we  cannot  refuse  the  recognition 
of  scientific  capacity,  even  though  deficient  in  the  qualities 
that  prompt  to  indefinite  progress. 

Under  the  patriarchal  system,  government  is  father, 
teacher,  preserver  of  the  people  ;  yet  not,  as  will  hereafter 
be  mere  fully  shown,  by  divine  right  of  kings  to  the  absolute 
allegiance  of  the  people.  It  represents  the  relation  of  the 
whole  race  to  the  universe,  expressed  in  principles  and  laws 
higher  than  personal  caprice.  It  originates  in  the  moral 
needs  of  men,  and  in  their  spontaneous  recognition  of 
right.  In  the  old  time,  it  affirms,  rulers  wrought  not  by 
laws,  but  by  example  ;  not  by  rules,  but  by  instinctive  per- 
ceptions. They  laid  down  the  maxim,  even  in  dealing  with 
rebellion  or  invasion,  that  doing  justly  would  conquer  an 
enemy  more  effectually  than  force  of  arms.1  This,  of 
course,  means  that  such  was  the  aspiration  which,  in  later 
times,  this  peaceable  and  civil  race  pursued,  affirming  its 
success  to  have  been  apparent  in  the  divine  and  creative 

>  Shu-king,  II.  2. 


112  ELEMENTS. 

past.  Through  the  supposed  degeneracy  of  centuries  it 
has  endured,  and  is  still  visible  in  many  institutions  imply- 
ing the  highest  forces  of  moral  culture,  amidst  the  special 
laws  that  prove  such  forces  far  from  available.  In  what 
ways,  and  how  imperfectly,  the  actual  framework  of  gov- 
ernment is  adjusted  to  the  strict  demand  for  concrete  insti- 
tution of  virtue  will  be  considered  elsewhere.  Works  on 
judicial  precedents,  reviews  of  criminal  legislation,  records 
of  causes  ctlebres,  discussions  of  the  theory  and  practice  of 
government,  abound  ;  and  the  law  codes,  whatever  mixture 
of  good  and  evil  they  may  contain,  are  models  of  direct, 
practical,  unmistakable  dealing  with  the  facts,  and  monu- 
ments of  sincere  effort  to  deal  justly.  They  consist,  it  is 
true,  of  bald  detail,  though  arranged  with  the  utmost  clear- 
ness. Thus  the  Tcheou-li J  is  an  amazingly  long,  minute 
enumeration  of  official  functions.  The  Ming  published  a 
description  of  their  government  in  the  sixteenth  century 
in  nearly  three  hundred  volumes.  The  present  dynasty 
has  issued  a  still  more  comprehensive  collection  of  laws, 
not  only  in  their  actual  form,  but  in  all  the  stages  of  their 
growth  The  Penal  Code  of  the  T'sing2  is  a  compilation 
of  extreme  minuteness  and  reach,  abounding  in  just*  dis- 
tinctions and  noble  equities.  It  is  but  here  and  there  that 
startling  anomalies,  in  principles  and  estimates,  interrupt 
the  great  preponderance  of  mercy  over  severity.  Its 
accomplished  translator  claims  that,  "if  not  the  most  just, 
it  is  at  least  the  most  comprehensive  and  uniform,  and 
suited  to  the  genius  of  the  people  for  whom  it  is  designed, 
perhaps,  of  any  that  ever  existed."3 


This  review  of  the  results  of  Chinese  industry  justifies 
us  in  claiming  for  such  assiduity,  patience,  loyalty  to  con- 

1  Translated  into  French  by  Ed.  Biot.  2  Translated  by  Staunton. 

8  Preface,  xi. 


SCIENCE.  113 

ditions,  and   conservation  of  materials  and  uses,  that  it  is 
no  less  than  a  Religion  of  Labor.    These  results  are 

,  .  .  ill  Compara- 

stupendous  in  amount;  their  services  invaluable  to  tive resuits 
civilized  life ;  their  elements  organized  in  stable  of  Chinese 
and  productive  processes  with  a  fidelity  nowhere 
equalled.  The  visionary  splendors  of  Far  Cathay  for  med- 
iaeval fancy  are  surpassed  by  the  realities  of  her  practical 
resource  and  splendid  gifts  to  modern  civilization.  Her 
over-speed  from  head  to  hand,  her  absorption  in  the  con- 
crete, her  plodding  conformity  to  fixed  ideals,  bid  us  pause 
to  observe  what  moral  and  spiritual  secret  hides  in  an 
earnestness  so  effective  on  a  ground  so  confined. 

Confined  it  surely  is.  In  all  this  wealth  and  orderly 
construction  there  is  defect  of  inner  relation ;  of  that 
power  of  combining  phenomena  to  large  results,  which  is 
requisite  to  science  ;  and  of  that  openness  to  fresh  maxims 
and  formulas  which  is  essential  to  progress.  These  fail- 
ings are  so  familiar  in  Chinese  labor,  that  they  have  almost 
seemed  to  belong  there  exclusively  ;  and  we  are  apt  to  for- 
get that  they  are  precisely  the  obstacles  which  have  beset 
science  in  the  West,  and  which  neither  the  friction  of 
races,  nor  the  supposed  tendency  of  Christianity  to  eman- 
cipate the  mind,  had  overthrown,  or  even  shaken,  as  late  as 
a  hundred  years  ago.  It  is  only  within  that  period  that  we 
can  find  a  basis  even  for  the  distinction  drawn  by  Ampere, 
which  allows  the  West  the  power  to  "apply  and  perfect" 
what  the  East  "  invents  and  preserves." 

In  accounting  for  the  unprogressive  element  in  arts  and 
sciences  pursued  with  such  devotion,  we  must  re- 
member that,  in  so  vast  a  population  as  the  Chinese,  phjlos°Phy 

'  'of  its  "un- 

cheapness   of  labor  will  naturally  foreclose  the  use  progress- 
of  machinery :  an  immense  demand  for  employment  lv 
does  not  favor  the  growth  of  labor-saving  inventions  ;  and 
simple  tastes  -and  easy  subsistence  will  maintain  old  proc- 
esses of  industry  against  whatever  tends  to  their  disturb- 

8 


I  14  ELEMENTS. 

ance.  But  it  is  plain  from  our  analysis  of  Chinese 
character,  that  we  must  go  behind  the  statistics  of  popula- 
tion to  solve  this  question.  The  physical  circumstances  of 
the  masses,  indeed,  fail  to  stimulate  them  to  progress ; 
but  the  national  type  itseff  presents  positive  drawbacks  to 
the  charms  of  growth.  What  has  been  called  the  idealism 
of  this  people  is  not  contempt  for  material  things,  but  pre- 
occupation of  the  ground  by  fixed  formulas  and  habits, 
held  absolute  and  unimprovable.  A  primitive  simplicity 
constantly  taught  and  pursued  ;  adherence  to  conventional 
formulas  of  number  on  which  every  thing  in  the  universe  is 
constructed,  and  which  predetermine  the  forms  of  analysis 
so  that  there  can  never  be  more  nor  less  than  so  many 
elements  ;  intentness  of  a  concrete  habit  on  petty  details  ; 
religious  objections  to  the  use  of  dissection,  or  other  interfer- 
ence with  the  dead  body  ;  and  the  inevitable  plodding  that 
must  result  from  following  prescribed  rules,  —  are  illustra- 
tions of  this  foreclosure  of  scientific  progress.  Behind  all  this 
is  the  great  uniformity  of  the  Chinese  type  itself,  due  to  its 
comparative  isolation.  Moreover,  though  comprising  many 
elements  in  its  Chinese  form,  this  Mongolic  blood  lacks 
the  live  chemistry  of  commingling  qualities,  and  the  mobil- 
ity of  resources  that  need  not  to  repeat  their  forms.  To 
the  physiological  distinctness  of  the  race  has  of  late  been 
added  a  deliberate  withdrawal  from  the  magnetism  of  com- 
mercial relations  ;  so  that  its  progress,  which  with  all  these 
drawbacks  was  by  no  means  insignificant,  has  been  seri- 
ously checked.  Japan,  but  a  few  years  since  more  hostile 
to  foreign  influence  than  China,  has  a  bolder  outlook  and 
swifter  conversion. 

But  the  old  inventions  that  illustrate  Chinese  labor  must 
not  be  forgotten,  nor  the  great  and  happy  civiliza- 
tion that  has  been  built  on  them,  transmitting  them 
to  us  also,  and  starting  us  on  the  track  of  many  noble  sci- 
ences and  arts.    "  If  the  importers  of  silk,"  says  Gibbon, 


SCIENCE.  115 

"  had  introduced  printing,  already  practised  by  the  Chinese, 
the  comedies  of  Menander  and  entire  decades  of  Livy 
would  have  been  perpetuated  in  the  editions  of  the  sixth 
century.  A  larger  view  of  the  globe  might  have  promoted 
improvement  of  speculative  science ;  but  the  Christian 
geography  was  forcibly  extracted  from  texts  of  Scripture  ; 
and  study  of  Nature  was  the  surest  symptom  of  an  unbe- 
lieving mind."  The  time  has  gone  by  for  regarding  the 
Chinese  as  a  hopelessly  unprogressive  race.  Here  is  no 
dank  moss-grown  forest,  where  the  falling  leaves  of  cen- 
turies have  lain  undisturbed,  only  to  be  overshot  with 
dead  trunks  of  the  trees  that  bore  them.  How  decisively 
recent  wars  with  European  powers  have  opened  the  way 
for  China  to  fresh  interest  in  their  cultures,  and  earnest 
efforts  to  stand  abreast  with  them  in  social  progress,  will 
perhaps  be  more  manifest  after  a  short  historical  review  of 
the  relations  of  the  Empire,  commercial  and  social,  with 
the  outside  world. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS. 


prevailing  belief  that  the  Chinese  are  an  unsocial 
people,  who  have  always  haughtily  closed  their  Ancient 
doors  against  foreigners,  is  at  variance  with  the  intercourse 
facts  of  history.  It  proceeds  from  a  misunderstand-  Jhina. 
ing  of  the  causes  which  led  to  a  policy  adopted  by 
the  Empire  only  in  recent  times.  The  Romans  had  simi- 
lar impressions  concerning  this  remote,  and  by  them 
scarcely  visited,  race.  Pliny  describes  the  Seres  as  "  shun- 
ning intercourse,  and  awaiting  the  approach  of  those  who 
would  traffic  with  them."  l  Yet  he  admits  that  they  sup-" 
plied  Rome  in  his  time  with  greatly  admired  tissues,  made 
of  what  he  describes  as  carded  wool  ;  with  the  best  kind 
of  iron  ;  with  skins  and  silks.2  It  impresses  him  with  ad- 
miration at  the  progress  of  mankind,  that  "we  should  now 
be  reaching  the  Seres  to  obtain  our  clothing,  and  the  emer- 
ald in  the  bowels  of  the  earth."  3  The  "  Serica  vestis  "  was 
a  luxury  which  had  more  than  once  to  be  abated  by  sump- 
tuary laws.  The  old  Greeks  knew  only  that  from  an  unseen 
people  at  the  borders  of  the  world  came  a  delicate  mystery 
of  fibre  and  color,  to  be  wrought  up  by  the  looms  of  the 
-^Egean  into  precious  fabrics,  which  they  called,  now  Me- 
dian, now  Assyrian.  By  ample  testimony  we  know  that 
this  reserved  and  silent  sphere  of  civilizing  powers  was 

1  Natural  History,  VI.  20.  *  Ibid. ;  and  XXXIV.  41.  »  Ibid.  XII.  i. 


I2O  ELEMENTS. 

open,  before  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  to  Persian 
and  other  traders  from  the  West.1  Such  interest  was  felt 
in  these  relations  that  somewhat  later  Chinese  annals  re- 
cord numerous  embassies  from  Ta-tsin  (or  Great  China), 
bringing  tributes,  as  they  express  it,  and  asking  the  benefits 
of  trade.  As  early  as  the  second  century,  M.  Aurelius 
turned  to  China  from  his  Parthian  conquests,  to  secure  the 
nobler  unities  of  commerce ;  binding  the  ends  of  the 
known  world  by  interchange  of  courtesies  and  gifts.2  Ref- 
erences to  Indian  and  Persian  relations  in  much  earlier 
times  than  any  of  these  might  be  given,3  but  the  details 
are  of  doubtful  value.  The  Chinese  must  have  been  too 
much  occupied  in  guarding  their  borders  from  barbarous 
tribes,  and  in  developing  their  own  immense  territory,  to 
seek  intercourse  with  distant  countries.  A  vast  rim  of 
desert  intervened  on  one  side,  an  ocean  on  the  other.  It 
is  not  strange  that  their  earliest  records  make  no  mention 
of  distant  trading  marts,  nor  that  we  are  indebted  to  the 
eager  and  inquisitive  Arabs  for  the  first  important  notices 
*of  their  commercial  relations  with  the  West.  Their  very 
name,  old  as  it  must  be,  is  of  unknown  origin  ;  by  some 
supposed  to  be  the  native  Tsin,  by  others  the  name  given 
the  empire  by  the  Hindus,  who  connected  it  with  the  An- 
namese  peninsula  (Cochin}.*  Nevertheless,  it  is  certain 
that  their  industry  was  the  first  to  open  up  the  wilds  of 
Central  Asia,  and  to  civilize  its  wandering  hordes.  It  is  the 
glory  of  their  Han  emperor  —  Wuti  —  to  have  established 
a  secure  commerce  with  the  opposite  border  of  the  conti- 
nent in  the  second  century  B.C.  ;  with  one  hand  suppressing 
predatory  tribes,  and  with  the  other  protecting  the  regular 
movements  of  trading  caravans  to  more  distant  lands. 

1  For  early  relations  of  China  with  the  West,  see  Lasseds  Ind.  A  Iterth.  II.  606-620 ;  Notes 
and  Queries,  June,  1870:  Gibbon,  ch.  xl. 

2  Pauthier,  Relat.  Polit.  de  la  Chine  av.  les  Puiss.  Occid.  p.  17-18. 
8  Ibid.  p.  14 ;  Martin's  China,  I.  p.  257. 

*  Mayers  in  Chin.  Rev.,  May  and  June,  1875. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  121 

This  adventurous  spirit,  so  rare  in  Asiatic  monarchs,  was 
rewarded  by  the  arrival  of  one  of  his  generals,  if  not  at  the 
Caspian  Sea,  yet  near  the  Persian  Gulf,  whence  the  vine, 
true  symbol  of  social  unity,  was  carried  to  China ;  whose 
exchange  for  the  gift  came  some  centuries  later,  when  the 
silk-worm,  symbol  of  productive  labor,  was  brought  to  Con- 
stantinople by  Nestorian  monks.  From  the  date  at  which 
Ma-touan-lin  begins  his  notices  of  Indian  relations,  religious 
and  commercial,1  —  not  far  from  the  Christian  era,  —  two, 
and  probably  three,  great  lines  of  traffic  were  fully  organ- 
ized across  the  continent.  One  high-road  is  described  by 
Ptolemy  as  coasting  the  desert  on  the  south  from  Bactria 
to  the  Western  sea ;  another  led  from  Samarcand  to  the 
northern  provinces  of  China.  In  nine  months  the  cara- 
vans crossed  from  sea  to  sea ;  and  the  Romans  met  these 
returning  land-galleons  at  the  fairs  of  Armenian  and 
Persian  towns.2 

So  wide-reaching  were  the  attractive  powers  of  industry 
in  an  age  when  the  present  centres  of  civilization 

Chinese 

were  a  wilderness,  and  railroad  and  ocean-steamer  interest  in 
beyond  the  world  of  dreams.  But  the  persistent  foreign 

•*  *  countries. 

faith  of  the  Chinese  in  their  own  cosmopolitanism 
has  recorded  much  earlier  intercourse  with  the  nations 
immediately  in  contact.  The  Shu-king  records  tributes  to 
the  great  Emperor  from  foreign  as  well  as  native  States. 
Hospitality  to  guests  is  one  of  the  eight  "  principles 
of  government  •'  laid  down  for  the  earliest  kings.3  The 
Tcheou-li  describes  the  reception  of  foreign  embassies  at 
court,  in  those  remote  ages  which  it  professes  to  represent', 
they  were  not  interrogated  at  the  borders,  but  greeted  with 
cordial  ceremony  by  officers  despatched  thither  for  the 
purpose,  escorted  to  the  capital,  and  lodged  at  the  public 

1  Journ.  R.  As.  Soc.  VI.  457-  2  Gibbon,  ch.  xL 

3  Shu-king,  V.  iv.  7. 


122  ELEMENTS. 

expense.1  Interpreters  were  charged  with  the  duty  of 
teaching  them  the  customs  of  the  kingdom,  and  facilitat- 
ing intercourse  ;  an  institution  now  expanded  into  that  of 
the  "  Ninety-six  Translators,"  who  mediate  between  the 
empire  and  all  the  languages  of  Asia.2  Treated  as^  the 
children  of  their  host,  strangers  were  expected  to  conform 
to  a  ceremonial  indispensable  to  his  position  and  functions. 
"  The  Emperor,"  says  the  Li-ki,  "  without  ceremonial,  can- 
not exercise  hospitality."  Not  less  were  this  great  people, 
grown  from  a  tribe  of  nomads,  disposed  to  seek  distant 
countries,  than  to  accept  their  allegiance  and  tributes.  As 
early  as  the  T'sin  dynasty,  in  the  third  century  or  earlier, 
all  Tartar  races  to  the  borders  of  Turkistan  were  subject 
to  their  sway.3 

Stanislas  Julien  gives  account  of  nearly  thirty  books  on 
the  Si-yeh,  or  countries  west  and  north  of  China,  from  the 
fifth  to  the  eighteenth  centuries,  by  official  persons  on  em- 
bassies political  or  religious.4  Nine  books  of  Ma-touan- 
lin's  geographical  researches  (thirteenth  century)  relate  to 
native,  twenty-five  to  foreign,  localities.  Cosmas  tells  us  in 
the  sixth  century  that  the  Chinese  brought  their  silks  and 
sandal-wood  to  Ceylon,  where  they  were  met  by  traders 
from  the  West.5  Here  was,  perhaps,  initiated  the  extensive 

commerce  carried  on  by  the  Arabs  with  China  for 
The  Arab  many  centuries,  not  only  by  sea,  but  across  Persia 

and  Thibet ;  and  it  has  become  more  than  probable 
that  many  of  the  inventions  supposed  to  have  been  intro- 
duced by  them,  such  as  paper  and  the  mariner's  compass,6 
were  brought  from  the  Pacific  shores.  In  the  seventh 
century  these  masters  of  the  carrying  trade  start  into 

TcJteou-li,  B.  xxxix,  43-44  ;  xxxm.  61. 
Pauthier,  p.  12.     Also  Prejevalsky,  Mongolia  (1876)  I.  67. 
Chinese  Recorder,  January  and  February,  1876. 

Chinese  Repository,    1848.     For  mention  of  Western  Lands,   Neumann's  Pref.  to  Chi- 
Pirates  ;  and  Bretschneider,  "  Chinese  Mediceval  Travellers" 
Knight's  Commerc.  Interc.  with  China  (Cyclop.  Use/.  Knowt). 
Draper,  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  123 

prominence  in  the  Chinese  annals.  The  attention  of  the 
Government  was  called  to  large  numbers  of  Western  trad- 
ers settled  in  Canton.  They  are  described  as  "  dark-bearded 
men,  who  take  no  wine  and  use  no  music ;  but  are  brave 
because  their  heaven  is  promised  to  those  who  shall  die  in 
battle."  One  of  their  embassies  refuses  to  fall  down  before 
the  emperor,  as  wont  to  bow  to  God  only. 

By  and  by  came  the  Arab  travellers,  Wahab  and  Abuzail, 
famous  for  bringing  back  the  first  substantially  authentic 
account  of  this  veiled  and  mystic  land.1  When,  they  wrote, 
in  the  ninth  century,  the  Moslem  were  but  traders  in  Asia, 
not  yet  conquerors  of  India.  They  met  no  form  of  exclu- 
siveness  worse  than  the  warehousing  of  trader's  goods  in 
the  ports  for  six  months  and  a  duty  on  them  of  thirty  per 
cent,  taken  out  of  them  in  kind.2  They  were  free  to  trav- 
erse, open-eyed,  the  wondrous  land  ;  saw  its  customs  and 
productions,  its  marvellous  social  order,  and  civil  adminis- 
tration ;  the  "  majesty  of  its  tribunals,"  always  rendering 
justice;  its  offices  held  by  "men  of  experience  only."3 
They  tell  of  the  judge's  proclamation,  repeated  thrice 
daily,  that  if  any  one  had  been  wronged  by  the  king  him- 
self he  should  have  immediate  justice.4  They  describe  the 
strangely  pictured  dresses,  the  copper  money,  passports, 
registration  of  travellers  ;  the  drums  at  the  official  gates, 
and  trumpets  sounding  the  hours,  and  bell-rope  reaching 
three  miles  (sic)  from  the  governor's  head,  that  all  might 
get  at  it  who  had  been  wronged  ;  the  light  taxes,  the  severe 
laws ;  the  eunuchs,  the  penal  rod,  the  revenues  from  salt 
monopoly,  and  from  tea,  which  they  praise  as  cure  for  all 
diseases.5  Alas,  we  fear  good  Ebn  Wahab  stretches  a 
point  when  he  reports  the  emperor  as  saying  that  he 
honored  the  King  of  Irak  as  king  of  kings,  himself  being 


1  Transl.  by  Renandot ;  our  references  are  to  a  very  rare  old  English  version  (1733). 

2  Mahom.  Travellers^  etc..  p.  21.  *  Ibid.  p.  23,  73. 

*  Ibid.  p.  74.  8  Ibid.  pp.  18-26,  34,  48,  74. 


122  ELEMENTS. 

expense.1  Interpreters  were  charged  with  the  duty  of 
teaching  them  the  customs  of  the  kingdom,  and  facilitat- 
ing intercourse  ;  an  institution  now  expanded  into  that  of 
the  "  Ninety-six  Translators,"  who  mediate  between  the 
empire  and  all  the  languages  of  Asia.2  Treated  as  the 
children  of  their  host,  strangers  were  expected  to  conform 
to  a  ceremonial  indispensable  to  his  position  and  functions. 
"  The  Emperor,"  says  the  Li-ki,  "  without  ceremonial,  can- 
not exercise  hospitality."  ^Not  less  were  this  great  people, 
grown  from  a  tribe  of  nomads,  disposed  to  seek  distant 
countries,  than  to  accept  their  allegiance  and  tributes.  As 
early  as  the  T'sin  dynasty,  in  the  third  century  or  earlier, 
all  Tartar  races  to  the  borders  of  Turkistan  were  subject 
to  their  sway.3 

Stanislas  Julien  gives  account  of  nearly  thirty  books  on 
the  Si-yeh,  or  countries  west  and  north  of  China,  from  the 
fifth  to  the  eighteenth  centuries,  by  official  persons  on  em- 
bassies political  or  religious.4  Nine  books  of  Ma-touan- 
lin's  geographical  researches  (thirteenth  century)  relate  to 
native,  twenty-five  to  foreign,  localities.  Cosmas  tells  us  in 
the  sixth  century  that  the  Chinese  brought  their  silks  and 
sandal-wood  to  Ceylon,  where  they  were  met  by  traders 
from  the  West.5  Here  was,  perhaps,  initiated  the  extensive 

commerce  carried  on  by  the  Arabs  with  China  for 
The  Arab  many  centuries,  not  only  by  sea,  but  across  Persia 

and  Thibet ;  and  it  has  become  more  than  probable 
that  many  of  the  inventions  supposed  to  have  been  intro- 
duced by  them,  such  as  paper  and  the  mariner's  compass,6 
were  brought  from  the  Pacific  shores.  In  the  seventh 
century  these  masters  of  the  carrying  trade  start  into 

Tcheou-li,  B.  xxxix,  43-44;  xxxm.  61. 
Pauthier,  p.  12.     Also  Prejevalsky,  Mongolia  (1876)  I.  67. 
Chinese  Recorder,  January  and  February,  1876. 

Chinese  Repository,   1848.     For  mention  of  Western  Lands,   Neumann's  Pref.  to  Chi- 
nese Pirates ;  and  Bretschneider,  "  Chinese  Mediaeval  Travellers" 
Knight's  Commerc.  Interc.  with  China  (Cyclop.  Use/.  Knowl). 
Draper,  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  123 

prominence  in  the  Chinese  annals.  The  attention  of  the 
Government  was  called  to  large  numbers  of  Western  trad- 
ers settled  in  Canton.  They  are  described  as  "dark-bearded 
men,  who  take  no  wine  and  use  no  music  ;  but  are  brave 
because  their  heaven  is  promised  to  those  who  shall  die  in 
battle."  One  of  their  embassies  refuses  to  fall  down  before 
the  emperor,  as  wont  to  bow  to  God  only. 

By  and  by  came  the  Arab  travellers,  Wahab  and  Abuzail, 
famous  for  bringing  back  the  first  substantially  authentic 
account  of  this  veiled  and  mystic  land.1  When^  they  wrote, 
in  the  ninth  century,  the  Moslem  were  but  traders  in  Asia, 
not  yet  conquerors  of  India.  They  met  no  form  of  exclu- 
siveness  worse  than  the  warehousing  of  trader's  goods  in 
the  ports  for  six  months  and  a  duty  on  them  of  thirty  per 
cent,  taken  out  of  them  in  kind.2  They  were  free  to  trav- 
erse, open-eyed,  the  wondrous  land  ;  saw  its  customs  and 
productions,  its  marvellous  social  order,  and  civil  adminis- 
tration ;  the  "  majesty  of  its  tribunals,"  always  rendering 
justice;  its  offices  held  by  "men  of  experience  only."3 
They  tell  of  the  judge's  proclamation,  repeated  thrice 
daily,  that  if  any  one  had  been  wronged  by  the  king  him- 
self he  should  have  immediate  justice.4  They  describe  the 
strangely  pictured  dresses,  the  copper  money,  passports, 
registration  of  travellers  ;  the  drums  at  the  official  gates, 
and  trumpets  sounding  the  hours,  and  bell-rope  reaching 
three  miles  (sic)  from  the  governor's  head,  that  all  might 
get  at  it  who  had  been  wronged  ;  the  light  taxes,  the  severe 
laws ;  the  eunuchs,  the  penal  rod,  the  revenues  from  salt 
monopoly,  and  from  tea,  which  they  praise  as  cure  for  all 
diseases.5  Alas,  we  fear  good  Ebn  Wahab  stretches  a 
point  when  he  reports  the  emperor  as  saying  that  he 
honored  the  King  of  Irak  as  king  of  kings,  himself  being 

1  Transl.  by  Renandot ;  our  references  are  to  a  very  rare  old  English  version  (1733). 

2  Mahom.  Travellers^  die.,  p.  21.  3  Ibid.  p.  23,  73. 

«  Ibid.  p.  74.  «  Ibid.  pp.  18-26,  34,  48,  74. 


1 24  ELEMENTS. 

only  the  second  ;  while  the  King  of  the  Indies,  or  of  Ele- 
phants, was  the  third,  and  the  King  of  Greece,  or  of  come- 
liest  men,  the  fourth.1  But  the  story  proves  how  liberal  a 
spirit  this  foreigner  found  in  the  Chinese  government ;  as 
does  his  tale  of  a  eunuch,  high  in  position,  who  was  de- 
graded for  cheating  a  Persian  merchant,  and  sent  to  penal 
service  for  life.2  He  reports,  admiringly,  that  the  poor  and 
rich  alike  everywhere  learned  to  read  and  write  ;  that  wars 
were  not  made  for  conquest ;  that  works  in  art  were  so  per- 
fect that  other  nations  could  but  faintly  imitate  them.3 
After  all  this  we  are  hardly  prepared  for  the  charge  that 
this  highly  civilized  people  were  cannibals,  eating  all  who 
were  put  to  death  ! 4 

Then  come  toiling  across  the  steppes  indomitable  Cath- 
The  Cath-  °^c  Priests>  —  Carpini  and  Ruysbrceck  and  Oderic, 
oiic  Mis-  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  —  sent 
to  convert  the  Great  Khan,  or  get  his  infidel  aid 
against  the  infidel.  They  too  are  hospitably  received. 
Carpini  finds  a  "  very  courteous  and  gentle  people  ; "  even 
ibn  fancies  they  worship  Christ.5  Then  roving  Ibn 

Batuta.  Batiita  of  Tangier,  hunting  up  Moslem  friends  at 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  sails  over  sea  from  the  Sunda  Isles 
to  this  land  "  without  parallel  "  for  products  and  resources  ; 
"for  its  fruits,  agriculture,  silver,  gold."  He  sees  the  poor 
going  clad  in  silks  ;  the  porcelain,  the  painting  not  to 
be  surpassed  ;  marks  the  strict  rules  of  registration  in 
full  use  for  vessels  in  port.  He  finds  a  town  for  Mahom- 
medans  in  every  province  ;  and  in  one  chief  city  great 
numbers  of  Jews,  Christians,  and  Turks,  "whose  great 
men  are  exceedingly  rich."  "  The  care  they  take  of  trav- 
ellers is  surprising  ;  for  these  'tis  the  safest  of  countries 
and  the  best."  Innkeepers  take  one's  property  in  charge ; 
are  held  responsible  for  it ;  provide  all  he  can  want.  He 

1  Muhom.  Trav.,  p.  53.  l  Ibid.  p.  72.  8  Ibid.  pp.  22,  33,  50. 

4  Ibid.  p.  33.  6  Hakluyt   Collection. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  125 

is  himself  everywhere  honorably  entreated,  even  in  the 
prodigious  capital,  three  days'  journey  long  ;  feasted  at  the 
houses  of  very  high  officials,  who  invited  his  fellow  Mahom- 
medans  to  meet  him.1  Then  the  two  Venetian  Marco 
Polos,  not  following  after  commercial  gain,  but  in  Pol°- 
pure  desire  to  see  the  mysterious  Kitai,  stretch  away 
thither  from  Bokhara  to  find  the  great  Kublai  so  inter- 
ested in  the  West  and  its  faith,  that  he  sends  them  back 
for  a  hundred  teachers  of  Christianity,  with  respectful 
message  to  the  Pope.  Then  with  papal  dignitaries  in  tow 
they  make  another  yet  wearier  stretch  of  three  and  a  half 
years  through  all  seasons,  whose  perils  prove  too  much 
for  his  Holiness's  show-men  ;  but  reach  at  last  the  gates 
of  Clemenfou,  where  grand  rejoicings  are  their  meed.  For 
seventeen  years  young  Marco  acts  as  ambassador  in  every 
part  of  China,  commending  himself  to  public  service  by 
learning  four  languages.  Our  "  Middle  Kingdom  "  opened 
the  Eastern  hemisphere  to  this  earlier  Columbus,  as  she 
was  by  and  by  to  draw  the  later  by  her  beckoning  hand 
to  explore  the  Western  sea.  In  his  charming  narrative, 
to  which,  as  to  old  Herodotus,  every  year  adds  fresh 
authority,  he  describes  the  frequent  arrival  of  caravans, 
on  whose  cargoes  the  prices  were  fixed  by  experienced 
officers,  fair  profit  being  allowed  ;  and  reports  that  the 
Government  issued  paper-money,  made  exchangeable  for 
other  articles,  or  for  bullion  at  the  mint,  —  a  charge  of  three 
per  cent,  however,  being  made  for  all  renewals  of  worn-- 
out  bills  ! 2  A  thousand  horse-and-cart  loads  of  raw  silk 
entered  Pe-king  daily  ;  "  to  which  city  every  thing  most 
rare  and  costly  from  all  parts  of  the  world  finds  its  way."  3 
There  are  strange  things  about  this  old  opener  of  the 
Orient  ;  such  as  his  having  so  greatly  improved  the  maps 

of  the  world,  though  without  science  ;  and  his  not  men- 

« 

1  Ibn  Batuta,  ch.  xxra.  *  Marco  Polo,  B.  II.  ch.  xviii.  (Wright's  Ed). 

3  Ibid.,  II.  xvii. 


1 26  ELEMENTS. 

tioning  tea,  printing,  the  written  characters,  and  com- 
pressed feet,  while  noticing  so  much  that  was  far  less 
remarkable. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  the  Portuguese  found  Arab 
merchants  quietly  settled  in  the  chief  cities  of  China,  in 
Reception  full  freedom  of  traffic.  In  the  seventeenth,  Father 
of  the  Avril  enumerates  as  many  as  six  or  seven  great 

Dutch  and 

Russians,  routes  of  Chinese  trade  across  the  continent.1  In 
Navarrete.  j^g^  the  Dominican  Navarrete,  sharp  of  eye  for 
"  heathen  idolatry,"  bravely  penetrates  into  China  without 
help,  "  destitute  of  all  human  dependence  ;  the  first,"  he 
is  assured,  "  that  ever  ventured  among  these  heathen  in 
this  nature."  Deceived  by  Christians,  whom  he  has  en- 
gaged to  attend  him,  he  finds  "  an  infidel,  who  conducted 
me  with  very  good  will  and  at  a  small  charge."  His  expe- 
rience is  worth  noting.  Uncivil  Christian  soldiers  robbed 
him  of  his  money  and  church  stuff.  "  I  was  on  my  guard 
against  infidels,  but  not  against  Christians,  which  was  the 
cause  of  my  misfortune."  Three  native  soldiers  sailed  up 
the  river  with  him,  and  "  could  not  have  been  civiler.  All 
the  way  I  never  gave  any  man  the  least  thing  but  he  re- 
turned me  some  little  present ;  and,  if  he  had  nothing  to 
return,  there  was  no  persuading  him  to  accept  a  morsel 
of  bread."  Tired  one  day  with  climbing,  he  was  kindly 
led  into  a  guard-house  by  the  captain,  who  "  showed  com- 
passion to  see  me  travel  afoot  and  weary,  was  sorry  my 
things  had  been  stolen,  and  took  leave  of  me  with  much 
civility  and  concern." 

Nieuhoff,  Dutch  ambassador  in  1654,  found  at  Pe-king 
envoys  from  the  great  Mogul,  Tartars  from  the  West, 
Lamas  from  Thibet.  Jesuit  Father  Schaal  sat  in  white- 
haired  reverence  in  the  cabinet,  and  the  Khan  graciously 
studied  the  geography  of  Holland,  and  admitted  the  claims 
of  this  political  atom,  which  might  have  been  dropped 'into 

1  Chinese  Repository^  June,  1841. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS. 

% 

a  Chinese  province  and  lost  there,  to  national  dignity  ; 
treating  her  envoys  with  extreme  liberality  and  respect.1 
They  failed  only  because  foiled  by  Portuguese  priests.2  • 
The  reception  of  the  later  Dutch  embassy  by  Kien-lung, 
in  1795,  was  none  the  less  gracious  for  the  new  foreign 
policy  which  made  their  mission  of  small  effect.  Special 
officers  were  appointed  to  see  that  they  had  every  atten- 
tion that  had  been  bestowed  on  any  other  embassy,  and 
that  their  time  was  occupied  as  pleasantly  as  possible  ; 
and  a  letter  was  sent  by  the  emperor  to  the  Dutch  gov- 
ernment, announcing  that  he  made  no  distinction  in  his 
paternal  love  for  all  the  nations,  being  entrusted  by  Heaven 
with  the  common  care  of  all.3  The  Russians  were  re- 
ceived disdainfully  in  1650 ;  for  they  not  only  refused 
obeisance,  but  were  busy  in  securing  territory  on  the 
Amoor.  Yet  prisoners  from  their  defeated  army  in  1680, 
taken  to  Pe-king,  were  permitted  to  build  a  church  and  a 
college.  In  1689,  a  caravan  trade  was  opened  by  them  to 
the  capital.  In  1738,  a  Russian  spiritual  mission  was 
established  at  Pe-king,  the  terms  of  whose  charter  have 
been  faithfully  adhered  to  by  the  imperial  government, 
and  which  has  obtained  some  of  the  most  valuable  infor- 
mation on  China  thus  far  accessible  to  the  Western  world.4 
Down  to  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  boundary 
disputes  have  interfered  with  the  natural  relations  of  trade 
between  these  two  great  empires  ;  till,  in  1860,  free  com- 
munication with  Pe-king  was  conceded  to  Russia,  together 
with  a  large  portion  of  Manchuria. 

The  first  Portuguese  comers  in    1517  were  kindly  re- 
ceived, though  expelled  soon  after  for  good  rea-  of  the 
sons.      Occupying    Macao,    their    commerce    was  Portu- 
developed   through  the    seventeenth   century,    till  E 

1  Chinese  Repository,  August,  1844. 

2  Nieuhoff,  Embassy  (Ed.  1673),  p.  139. 

8  Pauthier,  Hist,  des  Relat.,  &c.,  pp.  51-71. 

•  EmuatsSiteria,  II.,  168-170;  also,  Abhandl  d.  Russ.  Gexandsch. 


128  ELEMENTS. 

they  succumbed  to  Spain  ;  since  which  time  Macao  has 
fallen  into  deserved  decay,  not  so  much  from  Chinese 
opposition,  as  from  its  vices  and  obsolete  ecclesiastical 
institutions.1 

America  cannot  complain  of  her  relations  with  the  Cen- 
of  the  tral  Kingdom.  Our  earliest  trade  to  her  ports  was 
Americans.  'm  ^Q  furs  Q£  tlie  sea_otter  •  opened  by  the  discov- 
eries of  Captain  Cook,  it  became  at  once  one  of  the  most 
lucrative  fields  of  traffic  then  known.  Owing  to  the 
failure  of  furs  in  Siberia,  this  peltry  of  the  Pacific  coast, 
and  especially  fox-skins,  brought  such  incredible  prices 
in  Canton,  that  in  1792  there  were  twenty-one  vessels, 
mostly  Bostonian,  trading  on  that  coast  for  cargoes,  to  be 
exchanged  in  China  for  cottons  and  teas.2 

The  results  of  the  first  opium  war  with  England  facili- 
tated the  Cushing  treaty  of  1844,  at  Wanghai ;  in 
which  full  freedom  of  religious  teaching  was  ac- 
corded in  return  .for  the  just  promise  of  the  United  States 
to  give  no  countenance  to  the  opiAm  trade.  After  the 
war,  in  1857,  these  provisions  were  renewed.  Mr.  Bur- 
lingame's  appointment,  in  1867,  to  direct  an  institution 
for  instruction  in  the  arts  and  sciences  of  the  West,  and 
as  Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  China  to  the  Western  world, 
was  an  event  of  the  highest  significance,  as  the  immediate 
results  revealed.  Mr.  Seward's  Treaty  of  July,.  1868,  while 
it  secured  for  China  eminent  domain  over  her  own  land 
and  waters,  and  consulates  in  American  ports,  guaranteed 
perfect  freedom  of  faith  in  both  countries,  the  right  of 
emigration,  penalties  for  illegal  and .  treacherous  trade  in 
laborers,  and  permission  for  the  youth  of  each  nation  to 
attend  the  schools  and  colleges  of  the  other  ;  at  the  same 
time  leaving  naturalization  laws  an  open  question,  and 
proposing  aid  in  constructing  railroads  and  telegraphic 

1  Montfort'^  Voyage  en  Chine,  p.  60. 

*  Irving's  Astoria,  I.  32;  Silliman's  Journal,  1834. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  1 2Q 

lines.  Similar  treaties  with  England,  France,  and  Prussia 
made  the  epoch  one  of  universal  meaning.  These  details 
give  evidence  of  a  recognition  of  international  interests 
and  duties,  not  to  be  explained  by  Christian  diplomacy, 
cannon,  nor  creed. 

The  Chinese  have  held  more  intercourse  with  foreign 
nations  than  any  other  Asiatic  race.  McCulloch 

<  Proofs 

says  they  are  "a  highly  commercial  people,  and  that  the 
the  notion  of  their  contempt  of  strangers  is  utterly  Chinese 
unfounded.     Nowhere  can  cargoes  be  bought  and  naturally 
sold,  loaded  and  unloaded,  with  more  business-like  exclusive- 
activity   than   at   Canton." l     The   ever  advancing  line  of 
their  limits  reached  at   last,  a   thousand   years   ago,  the 
western  borders  of  Asia.2     Later   came  quaint  pieces  of 
Mongol  diplomacy,  laid  up  in  the  French  archives,  written 
from  the  grandson  of  Genghis  Khan  to  Philip  the  Fair.8 
During  the  Tartar  dynasty  distinguished  Mongols  visited 
Rome,  and  a  Frenchman  was  archbishop  of  Pe-king.     Peter 
the  Great  sent  agents  to  China  to  obtain  knowledge  of 
the  science  of  government,  and  learn  the  art  of  building.4 
Russians,  Hungarians,  Flemings,  lived  in  Tartary,  and  a 
Tartar  was  contractor   for   helmets  in  the  French  army. 
Genoese,  Pisans,  Venetians,    made   the   round    tour   with 
interpreters  through  Central  Asia,  returning   by  way  of 
Russia ;  and  Mongol  cavalry  was  offered  for  the  conquest 
of  the  Holy  Sepulchre.6 

What  Oriental  religion  has  not  been  freely  admitted  to 
take  root  in  China  ?  From  what  neighboring  language 
have  not  her  scholars  translated  its  volumes  ?  Into  what 
one  of  those  tongues  have  they  not,  to  this  day,  translated 
her  own  ?  Her  vocabularies  and  dictionaries  are  in  Man- 

1  Commercial  Dictionary,  Article  on  "  Canton." 

1  Ampere's  account  of  Remusat's  Essay  on  this  subject  (Science  en  Orient,  pp.  79-81). 

8  Pautliier,  Religion,  &c. 

4  Pallas  and  Klaproth,  Mem.  rtl.  a  FAsie,  I.  4.  «  Ampere. 

9 


1 3O  ELEMENTS. 

churia,  Corea,  Japan,  Thibet,  Tartary,  Siam,  and  the  Pacific 
Isles.  Of  all  Central  Asia  she  made  the  earliest  charts, 
and  protected  the  oldest  commercial  roads,  and  inspired 
the  busiest  enterprise. 

Acts  and  policies  of  exclusion  towards  foreigners  have 

not  been  wanting.     How  long  is  it  since  any  thing 

like  freedom  in  trade  began  to  exist  between  the 
of  for-  States  of  Europe  ?  Such  procedures,  however,  on 

the  part  of  China  were  far  from  being  due  to  in- 
hospitality  or  incuriosity,  and  had  to  contend  with  the 
strongest  natural  inclinations.  They  have  mainly  arisen 
from  two  causes.  The  first  is  the  refusal  of  foreigners  to 

comply  with  the  national  ceremonial,  especially  the 
kotow.  kotow  ;  which,  like  all  State  forms,  is  a  constituent 

part  of  Chinese  religion.  The  kotow  is  not  pecul- 
iar to  the  Chinese.  Prostration  was  the  demand  of  the 
old  Persian  monarchy,  and  history  traces  it  back  to  Cyrus.1 
Many  instances  are  recorded  of  the  refusal  of  Greek  am- 
bassadors and  officers  to  degrade  themselves  by  such  a 
performance  ;  not  however  on  religious  grounds,  but  from 
personal  and  national  spirit.  Timagoras,  the  Athenian,  was 
put  to  death  by  his  indignant  fellow-citizens  for  submitting 
to  it.  The  Tartar  Khans  made  similar  assumptions.  In 
all  the  great  empires  of  the  East  prostration  and  adoration 
were  the  symbols  of  allegiance.  So  far  from  being  of 
Chinese  origin,  the  kotow  does  not  appear  in  China  at 
all  in  early  times.  It  is  not  in  the  older  classics,  nor  is 
it  recognized  by  Confucius,  nor  even  by  the  Tcheou-li ; 
and  it  may  have  been  introduced  with  the  centralization 
of  the  monarchy  by  Chi-hwang-ti,  as  late  as  the  third 
century,  B.C. 

The  emperor  himself  must  perform  it  at  the  great  sacrifi- 


1  See  the  quotations  In  Brissonius  de  Regno  Persarum,  p.  22  ;  also  Herodotus  VII.  136; 
and  Pauthier,  Hist,  des  Relat.  &c.,  p.  219;  Arrian  (Alex.  IV.  119)  and  Xenophon  (Cyrop. 
VIII.  3)  speak  only  of  adoration,  not  of  the  kotow  specially  ;  but  this  is  undoubtedly  meant. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  13  I 

ces  ;  and  even  to  his  mother.  The  symbol,  therefore,  is  not 
considered  as  centring  in  his  personal  claims,  but  includes 
him  as  a  worshipper.  This  adoration  is  for  the  patriarchal 
idea,  and  is  held  to  be  the  due  of  whatever  represents  that 
sovereignty :  the  kotow  is  even  made  to  the  imperial  cur- 
tain. Napoleon,  it  is  well  known,  did  not  share  Greek 
and  Saxon  scruples,  but  sharply  criticised  the  Amherst 
embassy  for  refusing  to  recognize  this  custom  of  a  court, 
of  which  they  were  the  guests.  Many  other  European 
diplomats  have  acted  on  the  idea,  that  those  who  are  seek- 
ing the  benefits  of  trade  should  not  ask  the  added  privilege 
of  setting  at  nought  the  laws  of  the  people  they  solicit. 
Kang-hi  himself  set  an  example  of  international  respect,  by 
instructing  his  agents  in  Russia  (1712),  if  invited  to  court, 
to  conform  to  the  customs  of  the  land.1 

The  jealousy  of  the  Chinese  court  for  the  honor  of  this 
ceremony  has  been  irritated  by  such  instances  as  that  of 
the  Siberian,  Baikov,  who  remained  six  months  in  Pe-king, 
in  1655,  refusing  to  conform  to  the  rules,  even  to  those  for 
presenting  his  letters.2  With  rare  magnanimity,  Kien-lung 
dispensed  with  it  in  the  case  of  Lord  Macartney,  the  first 
English  ambassador,3  who  simply  bent  his  knee,  as  to  his 
own  monarch  ;  of  course  a  precisely  analogous  perform- 
ance. No  embassy  was  more  honorably  treated  than  this. 
Of  the  rough  dismissal  of  Lord  Amherst  in  1816,  the 
kotow  question  was  not  the  only  cause ;  there  were  many 
mutual  misunderstandings,  brought  about  mainly  by  the 
hostility  of  Chinese  officials.4  Mr.  (J.  Q.)  Adams  ascribed 
to  arrogant  demands  for  the  kotow  the  origin  of  the  Brit- 
ish opium  war.5  But  sufficient  proof  to  the  contrary  is  af- 
forded by  two  facts :  first,  that  Lord  Napier  violently  broke 
through  the  rules  which  prescribed  that  all  foreign  com- 

1  Dudgeon  in  Chinese  Recorder,  May,  1871.  *  Erman,  II.  166. 

8  Staunton's  account  of  the  Macartney  Embassy,  ch.  x, 

4  Davis's  Sketches,  p.  74-81.  6  See  his  Lecture  in  Chin.  Repos.,  May,  1842. 


132  ELEMENTS. 

munications  with  the  government  should  be  made  through 
the  Hong  merchants,  persisting  in  direct  intercourse  with  the 
governor,  and  in  going  up  the  river  to  Canton,  just  as  Com- 
modore Perry  afterwards  forced  his  way  into  Japan  ;  and 
second,  that  the  Dutch,  who  sedulously  submitted  to  every 
ceremonial  demand,  were  quite  as  unsuccessful  in  obtaining 
satisfaction  as  the  English  who  did  not.  Four  Dutch  and 
Portuguese  embassies  kotowed  with  small  effect,  except  to 
add  to  their  own  humiliation.1  In  fact,  without  of  course 
denying  that  such  claims  ought  to  give  way,  as  they  have 
already  done,  to  a  larger  knowledge  of  mankind,  we  must 
admit  that  these  questions  of  etiquette  have  been  compli- 
cated by  a  previous  state  of  suspicion  and  dislike  on  the 
part  of  the  Chinese  towards  foreigners,  arising  from  long 
experience  of  their  worst  habits.2 

This  is  the  second  cause  of  exclusiveness  which  I  shall 
mention.     It  has   occasioned  a  positive  change  of 

Character  . 

of  Europe-  policy,  commencing  in  the  seventy-third  year  of 
an  vigors  tke  Man_chu  dynasty  ;  but  now,  in  part  through 
physical  force,  abolished.  Kang-hi,  in  1685,  pro- 
claimed free  trade  with  all  nations  in  all  the  ports  of  China. 
But  the  Chinese  have  had  good  reason  to  dread  the  for- 
eigner, and  to  label  him  "barbarian."  He  was  not  shut  up 
to  Canton  till  the  eighteenth  century,  when  the  Man-chus, 
surrounded  by  enemies  domestic  and  foreign  in  the  land 
they  had  conquered,  very  naturally  set  up  defences  on  the 
seaward  as  well  as  on  the  landward  side.  But  experience 
had  its  lessons  as  well  as  fear.  The  doubling  of  the  Cape 


1  Barrow's  Travels,  pp.  10,  n. 

2  The  vehement  Japanese  have  carried  their  dislike  of  foreigners  much  further  than  their 
neighbors.     They  forced  Dutch  commissioners  to  crawl  between  their  own  gifts  for  the  en- 
tertainment of  the  court,  and  even  to  trample  on  the  cross.     See  Kampffer,  B.  v.  xiv.     Oppo- 
sition to  the  liberal  policy  of  the  Siogoon  toward  England  and  America,  on  the  part  of  power- 
ful daimios,  produced  civil  war  in  1864  ;  and  the  fanatical  patriotism  of  their  retainers  was  shown 
by  continual  murderous  attacks  ou  foreign  traders  and  officials  for  many  years.    See  Mossman's 
New  Japan,  (1873). 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  133 

was  no  sign  of  promise  to  China,  for  it  brought  the  Portu- 
guese with  their  lust  of  slaves  and  gold.  One  of 
the  Andradas,  their  earliest  traders  with  China, 
was  a  pirate,  maltreated  the  native  merchants,  and  carried 
off  women  and  children.1  Pinto,  also  a  Portuguese,  plun- 
dered the  tombs  of  Chinese  kings.  The  humiliating  treat- 
ment of  foreigners  commences  with  the  first  Portuguese 
embassy,  immediately  afterwards.2  The  Macao  settlement, 
made  up  of  Portuguese  convicts  turned  pirates  and  smug- 
glers, had  not  existed  forty  years  when  the  native  popula- 
tion were  obliged  to  wall  it  out  from  the  mainland  to 
protect  their  children  from  being  kidnapped.  The  slave 
trade,  supplied  from  all  regions  around,  was  carried  on 
extensively  at  Macao.  "  True  believers  did  not  scruple  to 
abduct  children  for  education  by  the  Jesuits,  to  purchase 
them,  or  to  conceal  them  when  carried  off  by  kidnappers."3 
In  1606,  the  Chinese  were  led  to  believe  that  the  Portuguese 
of  Macao  were  about  to  attempt  the  conquest  of  the  coun- 
try, and  that  a  Jesuit  Father  was  to  be  made  its  ruler ;  in 
consequence  of  which,  armies  were  raised  and  sent  to  the 
neighborhood.  The  shores  of  China  were  the  scene  of  con- 
stant contentions  between  the  Dutch,  Spanish,  Portuguese, 
and  English.4  The  harshness  of  the  Spaniards  towards 
Chinese  in  Manila  is  said  to  have  provoked  that  system 
of  commercial  espionage  by  the  Hong  in  Canton,  which 
gave  the  English  so  much  trouble  in  i842.5  Previous  to 
this,  the  quarrels  of  the  Dutch  with  the  Spaniards,  and 
their  severity  towards  native  laborers,  had  brought  on  their 
expulsion  to  Formosa,  in  1624.  The  Jesuits  —  who  had 
been  received  with  delight,  and  raised  to  the  high-  Political 
est  posts  with  perfect  liberty  of  teaching,  by  Kanghi  interfer- 

1  Neumann,  Preface  to  translation  of  Chinese  Hist,  of  Pirates  (Oriental  Fund,  1831).     It 
was  the  same  in  Siam  and  in  Japan.     Koeppcn's  Relig.  d.  Buddha.  I.  470. 
1  Davis.  I.  13,  15. 

'  Lyungstedt's  Hist.  Sketch,  quoted  in  China  Review,  July  and  August,  1873. 
*  Knight's  Cyclop,  of  Knowl.  p.  140.  *  Williams,  II.  437. 


136  ELEMENTS. 

strife  with  an  Aryan  race,  should  be  quick  to  feel  these 
panic  terrors  !  Montfort  says  J  "  the  sight  of  a  European 
overturns  them  ;  discomposes  their  faces  in  a  moment,  and 
sometimes  produces  real  disorder  in  the  animal  functions." 
Analogous  alarm  approaching  panic,  in  view  of  the  grow- 
ing strength  of  European  powers,  notwithstanding  their 
apparent  self-exaltation,  has  probably  had  great  influence 
in  determining  the  foreign  policy  of  the  Man-chu  rulers. 

The  Chinese  would  not  suffer  the  Portuguese  to  ap- 
proach at  first  nearer  than  thirty  leagues,  being  terrified 
with  remembrance  of  their  former  calamity  from  Tartar 
invasions.  Soon  their  fears  were  increased  by  seeing  the 
Portuguese  ships,  like  floating  castles,  with  armed  men 
and  thundering  guns.  And  then  the  Moors  who  resorted 
to  Canton  reported  that  these  were  Franks,  —  "  people  of 
prodigious  valor,  and  conquerors  of  whatever  they  designed, 
the  unknown  borders  of  whose  empire  extended  to  the 
brims  of  the  universe."  2  Subsequent  experience  has  prob- 
ably taught  the  mandarin  mind  that  Portuguese  valor  and 
sway  were  but  trifles,  compared  with  the  power  of  foreign 
trade  to  sweep  away  all  their  institutions  in  a  tide  of 
strange  inventions  and  destructive  beliefs. 

With  the  nervous  dread  of  an  unknown  foe  is  combined 
the  self-sufficiency  natural  to  a  nation  of  such  mag- 
assert  nitude,  so  full  of  resource,  so  self-sustaining,  and 
their  self-  so  unique>  It  is  not  strange  that  China  should  be 

3jdeoua.cy. 

aware  of  this  adequacy  ;  nor  yet  that  in  its  rela- 
tions with  suitors  for  its  surplus  products  the  State  should 
specially  exploit  its  patriarchal  faith  ;  that  with  naive  be- 
nignity Kien-lung  should  announce  to  the  Government  of 
Holland  his  having  found  nothing  in  the  language  or  spirit 
of  its  messengers  inconsistent  with  the  deepest  veneration 


1  Voyage  en  Chine,  p.  278. 

2  Relation  of  the  Embassies  of  the  United  Provinces  to  China  in  the  Seventeenth  Cen- 
tury, published  in  two  ponderous  volumes,  with  quaint  engravings;   Pt.  II.  pp.  172,  173. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  137 

for  his  person.  The  impression  was  a  natural  one  that  the 
Europeans  were  not  only  by  the  laws  of  Heaven  and  Earth 
made  subject  to  the  Central  Kingdom  (for  the  Chinese  may 
as  well  have  their  ''manifest  destiny"  as  the  Anglo-Saxon 
his),  but  that  they  could  not  exist  at  all  but  for  the  pro- 
ductions so  eagerly  sought  by  their  ships  ;  so  that  during 
the  war  the  Emperor  recommended  the  non-exportation 
of  tea  and  rhubarb,  the  one  as  indispensable  to  the  "bar- 
barians "  for  food,  the  other  for  medicine.  The  imperial 
commissioner  at  Canton  thus  addressed  the  Queen  of 
England  : 1 

"  Of  the  exports  of  the  Middle  Kingdom  there  is  not  one  but 
is  profitable  to  men.  Our  teas  and  rhubarbs  you  could  not  do 
without  for  a  single  day.  Were  we  to  grudge  them  these,  and 
show  them  no  pity  in  their  distresses,  by  what  means  would 
these  foreigners  prolong  existence  ?  But  for  our  raw  silk  you 
could  not  carry  on  manufactures.  As  for  our  sugar,  ginger,  cas- 
sia, and  articles  of  common  use,  such  as  silk  piece-goods,  porce- 
lain, and  the  rest,  which  are  indispensable  to  you,  they  exceed 
enumeration.  On  the  other  hand,  the  commodities  here  imported 
are  all  fit  for  nothing  else  than  to  look  at  or  play  with,  and 
whether  we  have  them  or  not  is  a  matter  of  no  moment  with  us. 
Were  you  not  to  traffic  in  opium,  these  gains  would  never  exist. 
How  then  can  you  bear  to  seek  gain  by  means  of  an  article  so 
injurious  to  man,  and  without  compunction  of  conscience?  We 
have  heard  that  you,  the  ruler  of  your  honorable  kingdom,  have 
an  expanded  heart ;  and  you  must  therefore  be  unwilling  to  do 
to  others  what  you  would  not  desire  to  have  done  to  yourself."  2 

The  strength  of  the  moral  argument  here  happily  rein- 
forces the  weakness  of  the  material ; — an  application  of  the 
Golden  Rule  which  might  at  least  be  possible  for  a  Christ- 
endom which  looks  down  on  this  Confucian  form  of  it  as 
merely  negative  and  imperfect. 

1  February,  1840. 

2  Portfolio  Chinensis,  a  collection  of  Chinese  State  Papers  (Macao,  1840). 


138  ELEMENTS. 

Chinese  political  economy  is  the  result  of  a  long  devel- 
The  sim      opment  of  simple  tastes  and  habits  among  a  vast 


population.  "Foreign  commerce,"  it  says,  "  car- 
r*es  °^  our  Pr°ducts,  and  makes  them  dearer  ;  and 
we  have  no  need  of  European  silver.  The  more 
chariots  for  the  rich,  the  more  people  who  go  afoot  ;  the 
more  dainties  on  their  tables,  the  more  people  who  have 
nothing  to  eat."  1  The  idealism  of  Plato  and  the  industrial- 
ism of  Yao  and  Shun  are  agreed  in  a  jealousy  of  foreign 
intercourse,  arising  from  fear  of  the  corruptions  of  trade. 
In  the  earlier,  stages  of  the  nation's  growth  simple  tastes 
and  fixed  routines  had  been  the  path  of  prosperity,  and  the 
fruits  of  these  methods  were  not  lightly  to  be  exposed  to 
bold  manipulation  by  strangers  of  questionable  virtue  and 
very  manifest  irreverence  for  age  and  forms.  So  the  court 
appointed  that  a  body  of  native  merchants  should  take 
charge  of  foreign  commercial  relations,  with  direct  respon- 
sibility to  itself  ;  hoping  in  this  way  to  avoid  the  dreaded 
irruption  of  foreign  inventions,  manners,  and  vices. 

The  recent  isolation  of  the  Chinese  and  their  ignorance 
Mutual  of  our  civilization  forbid  cordial  intercourse.  This 
ignorance  ignorance  is  reciprocal.  The  European  comes  in 

of  Chinese 

and  Euro-  direct  contact  with  servants  mostly,  and  the  lan- 
guage is  an  insuperable  barrier.  When  Macartney's 
embassy  went  out,  in  1792,  no  man  capable  of  serving  as 
interpreter  could  be  found  in  Great  Britain.  In  1856  prob- 
ably not  fifty  Chinese  in  the  Five  Ports  were  able  to  read 
and  write  English.2  A  total  inability  of  the  whole  staff  of 
custom-house  officials  to  comprehend  European  habits  or 
speech  was  at  last  remedied  by  the  appointment  of  foreign- 
ers to  this  function  in  all  the  ports.3  Unwillingness  on  the 
one  side  to  submit  to  Chinese  decisions  in  dealing  with  the 
frequent  brawls  between  sailors  and  natives,  the  tradi- 

1  Girard,  II.  439.  2  Meadows,  Notes,  &c.,  XVII. 

3  Medhurst,  Foreigner  in  Far  Cathay,  p.  56. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  139 

tional  rule  on  the  other  of  interpreting  every  concession  as 
a  tribute,  —  and  treachery  developed  through  mutual  ignor- 
ance and  suspicion,  —  are  all  natural  incidents  of  the  anom- 
alous situation  in  which  an  ancient,  proud,  and  shrewd 
people  are  confronted  by  new-comers  from  a  remote  and 
utterly  strange  civilization,  little  recking  of  means  in  the 
pursuit  of  their  ends.  Amidst  frequent  wrongs  perpe- 
trated on  both  sides  in  the  trading  ports,  many  instances  of 
real  justice  by  native  officials  are  on  record  ;  together  with 
the  admission  that  "  Europeans  resident  there  have  found 
their  property  as  secure,  in  general,  as  in  any  other  country 
in  the  world."  l 

On  the  whole,  the  facts  are  probably  here  much  as  they 
would  be  elsewhere.  China  is  a  civilized  empire,  resting 
on  its  laws  and  manners  ;  and  its  relations  with  visitors 
doubtless  depend  to  a  great  extent  on  their  behavior,  being 
regulated  by  social  necessities  beyond  any  special  dispo- 
sition of  the  government  or  the  people.  The  custom  of 
conducting  business  through  the  medium  of  a  comprador, 
or  commission-agent,  has  led  to  an  impression  that  nothing 
like  a  system  of  commercial  rules  exists  in  China.  But 
more  careful  study  reveals  well  understood  principles  of 
trade,  —  the  obligation  to  provide  goods  precisely  according 
to  the  sample  ;  the  necessity  of  earnest-money  to  the  va- 
lidity of  a  bargain ;  the  joint  responsibility  of  broker  and 
merchant ;  the  binding  nature  of  a  verbal  guarantee.2 

The  Chinese  make  a  distinction  between  the  Russians 
and  other  foreigners,  perhaps  from  a  sense  of  nearer 
affinities  in  race.3  All  important  questions  are  settled  ; 
and  the  Muscovite  advance  is  undisturbed  along  the  lev- 
els of  Central  Asia,  —  threatening  collisions,  not  with 
China,  but  with  England,  who  is  moving  on  the  opposite 
line.  Against  other  States  there  are  special  grounds  of 
grievance. 

1  Davis,  II.  90.  *  China  Review,  No.  III.  1873.  5  Hubner,  p.  636. 


14O  ELEMENTS. 

Three  causes  of  embitterment  may  be  mentioned, 
Chinese  growing  out  of  relations  with  the  West  in  very 
forTot  recent  times.  These  are  the  opium  trade,  the 
tiihyto  cooly  trade,  and  the  treatment  of  emigrants  in 

the  West.      America 

It  has  been  denied  that  the  Chinese  Government   was 
sincere  in  its  opposition  to  the  traffic  in  opium. 
TrSe1UIE     There  is  no  doubt  that  the  evil  was  greatly  aggra- 
vated by  the  connivance  of  its  officials,  and  by  the 
prevalence  of  smoking  among  all  classes  of  the  people.    But 
Earnest-     State-papers  afford  ample  proof  of  the  energy  of  its 
Chinese      e^orts*  which  were  certainly  to  the  full  extent  of 
resistance    its  powers.     Emperor,  commissioners,  and  prefects 
argue,  reprove,  urge,  threaten,  decree  measures,  and 
inflict  penalties  unremittingly.     They  were  fully  conscious 
of  the   situation.     Commissioner  Lin  goes  to  Canton  with 
as  intense   a   resolution  as  any   Western  reformer   could 
exhibit. 

"  While  this  foreign  opium  remains  in  existence  I  will  not 
Commit  return.  I  have  sworn  to  carry  this  matter  through,  and 
sioner  my  purpose  shall  not  be  arrested."1  "  How  can  men 
bear  to  sit  down  negligently,  and  not  put  forth  a  single 
effort  to  save  the  people?  If  officers,  who  should  lead  the 
people,  do  not  change  their  own  habits,  of  what  use  are  they  to 
the  Government  ?  We  shall  make  vigorous  search.  The  guilty 
shall  receive  the  severest  penalties,  and  those  who  point  them 
out  shall  be  liberally  rewarded.  Your  life  or  death,  as  well  as 
the  misery  or  happiness  of  your  families,  are  at  issue  in  this 
matter."  2 

And  again  to  the  foreign  traders  : — 

"  Reflect,  that  if  you  did  not  bring  opium  where  could  our 
people  obtain  it  ?  Shall  then  our  people  die,  and  your  lives 

1  Lin's  Letter  to  the  English,  March  18,  1839  ;  in  Chinese  State-papers  (Macao,  1840). 
*  Lin  to  the  Mandarins,  March  15,  1839. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  14! 

not  be  required  ?  You  are  destroying  human  life  that  you  may 
get  gain.  You  should  surrender  your  opium  out  of  regard  to  the 
natural  feelings  of  mankind."  l  "  That  the  barbarians  are  wrong, 
and  we  are  right,  is  evident  to  all  men.  Why  should  it  be  worth 
while  for  us  to  regret  what  these  foreigners  bring  on  themselves  ? 
It  is,  therefore,  right  and  proper  that  a  final  stop  be  put  to  Eng- 
lish trade.  Let  every  ship  of  that  nation  be  driven  out  at 
once."  2 

Even  after  Commissioner  Elliot  has  surrendered  the 
opium,  before  held  by  the  traders,  Lin  is  not  satisfied  till 
the  warehousing  ships,  which  feed  the  trade,  are  cleared 
off  likewise. 

"These  barbarians  receive  the  treacherous  native  boats  with- 
in their  fleet,  and  afford  them  protection  ;  their  sailors,  too,  go 
ashore  and  excite  riots."  "  I  have  learned  that  the  Superin- 
tendent has  taken  the  newly  arrived  ships  of  the  outside  king- 
doms and  kept  them  back  in  the  outer  seas,  instead  of  making 
them  give  up  their  opium. "s 

Finally,  to  the  Queen  of  England  goes  this  appeal:  — 

"  If  the  men  of  another  country  should  seek  to  hold  inter- 
course with  England,  it  would  certainly  be  requisite  for  them  to 
obey  her  laws.  How  much  more  (sic)  does  this  apply  to  the 
Celestial  Empire  !  The  law  is  that  the  opium-smoker  shall  die. 
They  who  bring  opium  to  sell  it  shall  be  beheaded,  and  their 
cargoes  confiscated."  4 

All  this  sounds  like  something  else  than  policy,  or  bra- 
vado. Decisive  measures  were  taken  ;  limits  of  time  fixed 
for  the  continuance  of  smoking,  secret  informers  employed, 
houses  searched  ;  not  even  the  highest  personages  should 
have  exemption  from  penalty;  families  must  guarantee 
each  other.5  Mr.  Elliot  reported,  in  1839,  "The  Court  has 

1  March  26,  1839.  *  January  5,  1840. 

»  Ibid.  *  March  12,  1840. 

8  See  the  strong  edicts  of  October  and  December,  1840. 


H2  ELEMENTS. 

firmly  determined  to  suppress,  or  extensively  to  check,  the 
opium  trade."  1 

That  its  reasons  were  all  purely  moral  and  humane  we 
shall  not  affirm.  It  is  certain  they  were  economical  also. 
"  The  prevalence  of  opium,"  says  an  imperial  edict,2  "  has 
occasioned  a  daily  decrease  of  our  sycee  silver,  the  only 
sure  mode  of  preserving  which  is  to  prohibit  its  exportation 
altogether." 

The  Chinese  Government  has  constantly  imputed  the 
opium  evil  to  the  Europeans,  and  specially  to  the 
English.  The  quantity  consumed  previous  to  1770 
was  very  small.  It  was  imported  from  Assam,  and  used  as 
a  drug.  Neither  the  Catholic  missionaries  make  mention 
of  this  article,  nor  Marco  Polo,  nor  the  classics,  nor  the 
national  annals,  nor  the  old  codes  of  law.  At  about  the 
period  just  mentioned,  the  Portuguese  East-India  Company 
had  imported  a  thousand  chests  from  India.  Complaints 
were  made  by  Cantonese  writers  of  their  depot  at  Macao, 
established  in  1780.  Smuggling  was  carried  on  by  fraudu- 
lent transfers  to  native  vessels  ;  till,  in  1820,  the  Govern- 
ment made  every  officer  in  the  Canton  customs  responsible 
for  the  offence.  As  early  as  1800,  a  special  edict  forbade 
the  importation  of  this  "vile  ordure  of  the  strangers."  In 
1809  the  Hong  merchants  were  required  to  give  bonds  for 
every  vessel ;  but  the  connivance  and  venality  of  the  local 
officers  frustrated  the  laws.3  In  1833  half  the  British  im- 
port trade  in  China  was  in  opium.4  From  1792  to  1861  the 
increase  amounted  to  nine  hundred  per  cent.5  From  the 
beginning  British  officials  treated  this  illicit  traffic  with  re- 
spect, as  an  element  in  the  general  prosperity  of  trade.  Even 
so  conscientious  and  prudent  an  officer  as  Elliot  urged  upon 

1  Letter  of  January  30  (Chin.  Refos.^l.  353).       See  also  Slade's  China ;  Amer.  Eclec- 
tic^  I.  305,    note  on   Opium  War;    Neumann's  Ost   Asiatische  Geschichte,  p.    10;     Chi- 
nese Repos.,  VI.  341. 

2  January  26,  1837;  Chinese  Refos.,  May,  1842. 

8  Williams  II.  385,  386.  *  Davis,  III.  208.  B  Morache,  p.  101. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  143 

Government,  in  1837,  tne  presence  of  armed  vessels  to  pro- 
tect it.1  The  warehousing  ships,  kept  at  anchor  during  the 
whole  period  from  1821  onwards,  —  a  constant  refuge  "for 
absconders,"  and  for  the  "fast  crabs"  that  plied  between 
the  native  dealer  and  the  foreign  supply,  —  were  denounced 
by  the  Council  of  State  as  the  main  support  and  defence  of 
the  traffic.2  The  cultivation  of  the  poppy  is  prohibited  by 
edicts,  incessantly  renewed,  though  greatly  evaded.3 

Prince  Kung  more  than  once  declared  that,  if  opium  and 
Christian  missions  were  withdrawn,  there  was  no  concession 
which  the  Government  of  China  was  not  prepared  to  make 
in  furtherance  of  legitimate  commerce.4  "  This  traffic 
taken  away,"  said  Sir  R.  Alcock,  "  no  locus  would  be  left 
for  the  continuance  of  troubles." 6  But  the  high-water 
mark  of  English  official  morality  was  advice  to  have  the 
importation  legalized.  The  court  was  memorialized  by  a 
very  able  native  paper  to  this  effect,  and  Elliot  wrote  Palm- 
erston  that  he  could  not  but  think  the  hoped-for  legalization 
would  afford  his  Majesty's  government  great  satisfaction. 
But  petitions  to  the  contrary  poured  in  from  every  province, 
and  the  measure  failed.  Historical  justice  demands  a 
stronger  statement.  Whatever  reasons  may  be  alleged  for 
the  terrible  lesson  in  British  military  power  that  followed, — 
such  as  treacheries,  insults,  cruelty  to  shipwrecked  sailors, 
official  durance,  Hong  monopoly,6  all  of  which  are  at  most 
secondary,  —  one  fact  stands  as  overwhelming  proof  that 
the  war  was  waged  for  the  right  to  violate  native  law  in  the 
interest  of  traders  in  opium.  The  treaty  extorted  from 
China  in  1842  exacted  full  compensation  for  the  twenty 
thousand  chests  of  smuggled  opium,  justly  delivered  smug- 
up  on  compulsion  to  the  Chinese  commissioner  at  J^jJ*" 
Canton.  This  compulsion  was  described  by  Elliot  exacted. 

1  February  2,  1837.  *  July  M-  8  Peking  Gazette,  1874. 

4  Letters  to  the  Parliament  Commission.  8  Ibid. 

8  Pottinger's  Declaration  of  Reasons  for  the  War,  Chinese  Refos.,  1842,  p.  511. 


144  ELEMENTS. 

as  forcible  spoliation,  because  effected  by  his  personal 
duress  ;  although  it  was  employed  to  put  down  "  a  trade 
which  every  friend  of  humanity  must  deplore." 1  Upon  the 
ground  that  England  was  fighting  the  battle  of  international 
rights  and  duties,  such  indemnification  for  failure  in  the 
attempt  to  violate  them  was  a  self-contradiction.  It  is 
equally  certain  that,  but  for  the  determination  to  push  this 
shameful  violation,  the  troubles  might  have  been  settled. 
Davis  wrote  Lord  Palmerston,  in  1835,  tnat  "tne  desire  of 
the  Chinese  Government  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of 
British  traders  at  Canton  is  no  less  sincere  than  that  of 
England," — quoting  an  imperial  edict  to  the  effect  that 
the  extortions  of  native  merchants  may  have  occasioned  the 
ill-feeling,  and  that  such  proceedings  must  be  severely  pun- 
ished. Elliot,  whose  efforts  for  justice  were  unwearied,  was 
permitted  to  go  up  to  Canton  as  soon  as  the  peculiarity  of 
his  official  position  was  comprehended  by  the  local  authori- 
ties. He  had  the  good  sense  to  admit  that  they  had  acted 
in  entire  conformity  to  the  laws  of  the  land  in  firmly  resist- 
ing Lord  Napier's  demands  for  direct  communication  with 
the  higher  officials.2  As  early  as  1837  he  had  pointed  out 
the  real  source  of  danger  ;  and  the  probability  that  hun- 
dreds of  armed  and  lawless  men  would,  within  less  than 
a  year,  be  carrying  on  this  illicit  traffic  "  in  the  heart  of 
our  regular  commerce  "  was  urged,  in  his  note  to  Palmers- 
ton  of  the  date  of  January  2,  1839.  His  humane  and  con- 
ciliatory policy  was  ridiculed,  and  the  vehement  resentment 
of  the  envoy,  who  utterly  forgot  that  he  was  in  the  waters 
of  a  sovereign  State,  made  peaceful  settlement  impossible. 
The  British  defence  of  the  indemnity  clause  rests  on  the 
The  plea  that  it  was  an  outrage  for  the  Chinese  Govern- 
British  ment  to  compel  the  surrender  of  goods,  in  which 
nce'  British  subjects  had  been  tempted  to  invest  by  its 

1  Letter  of  April  6,  1839. 

*  Correspondence  with  Ki-shen  (Chinese  Repos.,  November,  1842). 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  145 

own  long-continued  connivance  at  their  importation,  con- 
trary to  its  own  laws.  But  such  a  plea  does  not  justify 
interference  by  a  civilized  State  for  the  benefit  of  smug- 
glers. Two  things  seem  plain  :  first,  the  duty  of  a  Gov- 
ernment to  refuse  to  stand  sponsor  for  any  violation  of  the 
import  laws  of  other  States  on  the  part  of  its  own  subjects, 
and  to  warn  them  that  they  will  not  be  defended  in  such 
proceedings  ;  and  second,  the  full  right  of  a  Government  to 
enter  at  once,  at  any  moment,  on  the  thorough  execution 
of  its  own  import  laws,  without  regard  to  previous  neglect 
or  failure.  By  both  these  plain  rules  the  claim  of  indem- 
nity is  condemned  ;  and  his  assuming  responsibility  for  the 
payment  of  the  confiscated  values  was  the  one  point  in 
which  the  commissioner  seems  to  have  transcended  his 
rights.  Doubtless  the  native  police  were  venal  ;  but  that 
connivance  of  the  constable  is  to  alter  the  nature  of  a  tres- 
pass, is  a  species  of  equity  of  which  we  may  well  desire  as 
little  extension  as  possible.  We  may  add  that,  however 
ill-executed  the  laws,  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  Chinese 
people  are  wholly  opposed  to  the  manufacture  or  importa- 
tion of  opium,  —  the  great  success  of  the  Tai-pings,  who 
forbade  it,  being  an  illustration  of  the  fact.1  That  the 
Government  has  sometimes  appeared  to  encourage  its 
home-growth  is  probably  explicable  as  an  attempt  to  make 
the  best  of  an  enforced  evil,  and  to  keep  the  profits  at  least 
from  the  hands  of  the  stranger. 

The  plan  adopted  by  the  authorities,  of  compelling  the 
delivery  of  the  contraband  goods  by  imprisonment  of  Brit- 
ish officers  and  merchants,  was  not  such  as  would  have  been 
chosen  by  a  European  government ;  but  it  has  as  much  to 
recommend  it  as  an  administration  of  affairs  which  had 
left  not  a  single  armed  ship  to  protect  the  British  mer- 
chant from  such  aggressions,  if  aggressions  they  were. 

The  "  British  and  Foreign  Review,"  after  setting  up  the 

1  Meadows,  Chinese  Rebellion,  p.  489. 
10 


146  ELEMENTS. 

plea  just  discussed,  closed  its  argument  against  China  by 
proposing  to  invade  that  country  on  account  of  the  seizure 
of  the  opium  ;  to  summon  the  rebel  societies,  and  dethrone 
the  Government  without  delay ! 

The  Chinese  argument  stands  on  three  charges  :  (  I) 
the  persistent  determination  of  the  English  to  hold  direct 
intercourse  with  the  viceroy  of  Kwan-tung,  contrary  to  law, 
The  Chi  kut  in  accordance  with  the  express  command  of 
neseargu-  Lord  Palmerston  from  the  outset,  —  and  the  violent 
ofBcial  movement  up  the  river;  (2)  their  encour- 
agement of  the  trade  by  storeships  off  the  coast ;  and  (3) 
their  forcing  the  Hong  merchants  into  a  false  position  and 
unjust  responsibilities.  To  these  must  be  added  their  pro- 
tection of  native  criminals  against  penalties  incurred  from 
the  Chinese  Government,  and  their  resentment  at  the  inflic- 
tion of  such  penalties,  as  an  insult  to  British  dignity.  Ac- 
cording to  Elliot,  in  1837,  the  court  had  formally  yielded 
its  principle  that  officers  should  not  reside  in  the  empire  ; 
the  right  to  send  sealed  communications  to  the  governor 
was  conceded  ;  mistakes  involving  derogation  were  recti- 
fied ;  and  a  disposition  was  manifested  "  to  devolve  on  me 
in  my  official  capacity  the  adjustment  of  all  disputes,  even 
between  Chinese  and  my  own  countrymen."  1 

It  is  indeed  difficult  to  imagine  what  grounds  the  Chi- 
Reflections  nese  cou^  have  had  for  maltreating  a  power  from 
whose  trade,  apart  from  opium,  they  had  at  least 
some  profit  to  expect :  while  the  English  envoys,  on  the 
other  hand,  burdened  with  the  protection  of  interests 
admitted  to  be  not  illegal  only,  but  to  the  last  degree  de- 
structive, could  not  possibly  avoid  occasioning  just  offence. 
The  cannon  that  afterwards  poured  slaughter  and  the  des- 
peration of  suicide  through  the  astonished  militia  of  Cha-pu 
and  Chin-kiang-fu,  and  the  horrible  excesses  which  attended 
the  sacking  of  these  towns,  were  doubtless  messengers  of 

1  Letter  to  Palmerston,  Dec.  4,  1837. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  147 

knowledge  as  well  as  power;  but  the  responsibility  of 
choosing  precisely  such  heralds  of  civilization  must  rest  on 
those  whose  "  knowledge  "  does  not  prevent  them  from  en- 
forcing vices  that  involve  the  selection. 

The  authors  of  this  state  of  things  were  the  British  East 
India  Company,  the  great  opium  dealers  of   the 
Eastern  seas.     Their  Indian   politicians  were  im-  ™deiaEa' 
pressed  with  the  importance  of  "  bringing  this  mag-  Company's 
nificent  country  within  the  pale  of  the  European  ^  Ol 
family,"  and  their  efforts  to  that  end,  by  traffic  in 
such  products  as  afforded  themselves  the  highest   profit, 
were  untiring.     "  Sometimes  they  frowned,  sometimes  flat- 
tered :  they  made  gifts  of  money  and  wines  to  the  manda- 
rins, and  put  heavy  cannon  in  their  factory  to  bring  the 
provincial   authorities    to    terms   in   granting   privileges." l 
"  The  Directors,"  such  their  defence,  "  would  gladly  have 
put  an  end  to  the  consumption  of  opium  if  they  could,  in 
compassion  to  mankind,  so  repugnant  to  their  feelings  was 
the  trade  ;  but  they  cannot  do  this :  and  as  opium  will  be 
grown  somewhere,  and   largely  consumed,  they  can    only 
do  as  they  do."  2     How  alike,  the  world  over,  are  the  trans- 
actions of  conscience  with  gain  !     How  similar  their  con- 
sequences also ! 

The  British  wanted  Hong-kong,  and  they  took  it  by  force 
of  arms.  Amoy  followed,  Ning-po,  Chu^san,  Nan-  Treaty  of 
king.  Four  large  cities  were  burned  or  sacked,  l842> 
and  large  stores  of  private  treasures  confiscated  as  booty. 
The  Chinese  fought  with  heroism,  and  learned  the  art  of 
war  in  impotent  struggles  to  defend  their  homes.  The 
treaties  of  1842-45  opened  five  new  ports  to  foreign  trade, 
with  a  consulate  in  each  ;  ceded  Hong-kong  island  to  Eng- 
land ;  and  gave  certain  personal  rights  of  internal  travel 
and  lease-holding  in  treaty  ports :  all  which  changes  are 
manifestly  predestined  in  modern  civilization  as  effectuated 

1  Chinese  Repository,  March,  1842.  »  Williams,  II.  496. 


148  ELEMENTS. 

by  the  right  of  the  stronger.  But  to  these  provisions  is 
added  that  master  proof  of  the  animus  of  the  war,  —  six  mil- 
lions of  indemnity  for  losses  of  British  smugglers,  which 
the  necessities  of  civilization  did  not  predestine,  but  the 
barbarism  of  trade.  Since  1842,  the  annual  importation  of 
opium  has  averaged  seventy  thousand  chests. 

To  the  weak  was  left  their  one  resort.  The  Chinese 
committed  the  fresh  crime  of  paying  off  the  indemnity  by 
heavy  charges  of  storage  on  teas,  assessed  by  the  Hong 
merchants,  and  by  them  handed  over  to  the  Government. 
The  war  of  1856  was  based  on  the  seizure  of  a  native  smug- 
gling vessel  by  the  Chinese  authorities.  Yeh  surrendered 
the  crew  on  demand  of  the  British  officials,  but  claimed  in 
return  that  foreigners  should  not  sell  registers  to  native 
vessels.  In  1856  Lord  Elgin  and  the  American  ambassa- 
dor insisted  on  the  opium  trade,1  and  it  was  legalized  at 
Fu-chau,  a  British  port.  The  bombardment  of  Canton,  on 
account  of  the  opposition  of  the  town-council  to  the  open- 
ing of  trade,  was  followed  by  the  advance  of  France  and 
England  to  Tien-tsin,  where  the  second  treaty  (1858)  was 
dictated,  toleration  of  the  opium  trade  enforced,  and  the 
drug  admitted  with  a  duty.  Fresh  fruits  of  civilized  pre- 
Treaty  of  destination  :  four  ports  on  the  Yang-tse,  a  diplo- 
Tien-tsin.  matic  mission  to  Pe-king,  free  travel  and  toleration 
of  Christ,  the  epithet  "barbarian"  to  be  suppressed,  and 
indemnity  paid  to  the  allies  ! 

The  attempt  to  force  a  passage  to  Pe-king,  in  order  to 
ratify  this  treaty,  contrary  to  the  arrangements  of  the 
court,  was  met  by  a  resistance  which  proved  how  rapidly 
the  Chinese  were  learning  warfare  from  their  foreign  teach- 
ers. The  French  protested  against  the  proceeding,  judging 
it  at  least  premature.  Respectable  journals  in  England 
denounced  it.  But  heathqn  "treachery"  was  the  ready 
answer  to  all  rebukes.2 

1  De  Mas,  II.  135.  «  St.  Denys's  documents  in  La  Chine  devant  /' Europe. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  149 

The  Chinese  on  their  part  had  their  barbarism.  It  is 
their  custom  to  predestine  the  death  of  unsuccess-  Two 
ful  officials  ;  and,  in  this  case,  the  illustrious  Key-  dviiiza- 
ing  was  the  victim.  It  is  also  Chinese  to  commit  t 
great  cruelties  when  under  the  influence  of  panic.  An 
outrage  of  peculiar  atrocity,  perpetrated  on  agents  of  the 
allies  by  a  bitter  enemy  of  concession,  but  without  sym- 
pathy from  the  people,  was  punished  in  a  manner  which 
showed  that  civilized  revenge  can  be  more  severe  than 
heathen  terror.  Pe-king  was  invested  (1860)  ;  the  magnifi- 
cent Summer  Palace  (or  "  Hundred  Palaces  ")  sacked  ;  the 
hoarded  treasure  of  a  line  of  kings  destroyed  or  scattered  ; 
while  Kung  was  taught  his  inferiority  to  the  English  offi- 
cial, and  Tien-tsin  opened  to  Europe  and  the  opium  trade. 
Doubtless  the  subsequent  moderation  of  the  allies  in  spar- 
ing Pe-king  and  treating  the  people  with  humanity  may 
have  helped  to  remove  the  dislike  to  Europeans,  besides 
giving  political  strength  to  the  party  of  Prince  Kung,  who 
were  inclined  to  a  liberal  foreign  policy,  —  an  advantage 
enhanced  by  the  admission  of  foreign  ministers  to  direct 
intercourse  with  the  Government.  The  co-operation  of 
Western  powers,  since  1860,  in  urging  better  provincial  ad- 
ministration, as  well  as  in  aiding  the  rulers  to  suppress  the 
Tai-ping  rebellion,  has  had  the  further  effect,  for  a  time  at 
least,  of  consolidating  the  unity  of  the  empire,  — a  point  of 
the  first  importance.  Whether  this  result  is  too  dearly 
purchased,  remains  to  be  seen. 

In  one  respect,  certainly,  the  fears  of  China  are  con- 
firmed.    A  new  era  comes  pregnant  with  change  Christi. 
for  a  time-hallowed  system,  under  which  is  com-  amtyand 
prehended  the  whole  national  organism,  moral,  in- 
tellectual, social,  and  physical.     The  Aryan  ideal  of  prog- 
ress triumphs,  and  its  work  of  creation  through  destruc- 
tion   begins.     Inflowing  Christendom  is   thus   far  known 
chiefly  as  the  bringer  of  a  gift  most  conspicuous  and  most 


1 5O  ELEMENTS. 

terrible.  Less  than  a  century  ago  opium  was  used  only  as 
a  medicine  in  China.  To-day  it  enters  through  the  breaches 
opened  by  Christian  cannon,  by  the  six  thousand  tons  a 
year,1  at  a  total  profit  to  Christian  merchants  that  has  al- 
ready reached  seventy  millions  sterling.  In  the  ears  of 
these  sleepers  England  thunders,  "  Awake,  thou  slug- 
gard ! "  while  with  her  right  hand  she  reaches  to  their  lips 
the  stupefying  drug. 

But  the  heart  and  sense  of  England  made  protest.  Two 
Protests  nundred  and  thirty-five  merchants  and.  manufactu- 
in  Eng-  rers  admonished  Peel  of  the  great  harm  the  crime 
would  do  to  English  commerce.  Gladstone  called 
the  war  of  1856  a  defence  of  smuggling.  Lawrence  advised 
a  heavy  duty  on  the  export  from  India.  The  powerful 
logic  of  the  London  Times  assailed  the  arrogant  business 
pretensions  by  which  the  outrage  on  a  foreign  civilization 
was  upheld.2  An  enlightened  statesman  and  official,  Sir 
R.  Alcock,  has  urged  the  sincerity  of  the  Chinese  Govern- 
ment and  the  justice  of  many  of  its  demands. 

Is  it  strange  that  fresh  outrages  in  China  should  prove 
Later  that  hostility  is  not  yet  effaced,  when  we  consider 
facts.  how  utterly  such  remonstrances  have  failed  to  pro- 
duce a  change  of  policy  ?  The  Anti-Opium  Society,  styled 
by  an  earnest  writer  "  the  last  uncertain  flicker  of  national 
conscience  on  the  subject  of  this  great  wrong,"  3  has  even 
proposed  free  trade  in  opium.  The  same  writer  presents 
more  recent  facts  with  much  force.  The  official  correspon- 
dence on  this  question  for  the  last  ten  years  is  "  free  from 
any  taint  of  moral  considerations."  Government  has  even 
instituted  inquiries  into  the  "  means  of  extending  opium 
culture  in  the  north-western  provinces."  An  increase  in 
the  duty,  consented  to  by  Alcock  in  1869,  caused  great 
dissatisfaction  to  the  Indian  Government,  and  was  aban- 

1  .V.  China  Herald.  =  1841. 

8  Mr.  E.  Fry,  in  Contemporary  Review,  for  February,  1876. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  15  I 

doned.  Ample  proofs  are  given  that  China  is  ready  to 
suppress  the  home  growth,  if  England  will  put  an  end  to 
the  trade  with  India  ;  and  that,  this  obstacle  being  removed, 
the  country  would  be  freely  opened  to  commerce  and  to 
progress. 

China's  grievance  from  Spain  and  Portugal  is  the  "  Cooly 
Trade."  The  term  is  inexact ;  "  coolies "  being  H  The 
Hindu  porters  of  low  caste,  while  the  Chinese  emi-  Cooiy 
grant  on  labor-contract,  however  poor,  is  untainted 
by  the  caste  system.  But  the  Cuban  trade  in  Chinese 
labor,  which  began  in  1860,  was  an  unmitigated  slave-trade. 
Treachery,  intimidation,  and  brutal  force  supplied  the  hu- 
man material.  The  centre  of  this  traffic,  as  of  all  other 
evil-dealing  with  China,  was  Macao  ;  to  whose  barracoons 
the  clan-fights  and  man-hunts  aided  by  native  officials,  and 
the  misery  of  the  lowest  classes,  afforded  abundant  supplies. 
Besides  involuntary,  there  were  other,  victims  ostensibly 
voluntary.1  Mr.  Julius  Palmer2  stated  that  he  had  seen 
copies  of  a  hundred  depositions  by  men  taken  from  differ- 
ent ships,  who  alleged  that  they  were  "got  on  board  by 
seizure,  by  promise  of  fabulous  wages  to  do  a  day's  work, 
by  narcotic  cakes,  and  by  the  power  of  woman."  The  con- 
tracts were  such  as  no  one  who  comprehended  their  mean- 
ing could  possibly  sign  ;  bartering  away  every  right  without 
one  security.  Many  were  "  forced  to  affix  their  names  by 
torture  or  starvation."  This  kidnapping  was  followed  by 
such  treatment  aboard  ship  as  well  deserved  to  be  called 
the  "Horrors  of  the  Middle  Passage," — often  resulting  in 
the  death  of  half  the  number,  as  well  as  in  the  dreadful 
self-immolation  of  firing  their  prisons  in  mid-ocean.3  Fi- 
nally, the  condition  of  the  victim  on  Cuban  plantations,  or 


1  China  Review,   vol.  n.,   No.  3,  and  Reply  in  No.  4  ;    in    which  the  main  facts  are 
admitted,  though  the  Portuguese  Government  is  strongly  exculpated. 

1  Lecture  in  Boston,  Dec.  14,  1870.  «  China.  Review,  1873. 


152  ELEMENTS. 

in  the  guano  beds  of  Peru,  was  worse  than  that  of  veritable 
slaves  would  have  been,  since  the  employers  had  not  a  life- 
interest  in  the  laborer.  In  less  than  two  years  a  hundred 
thousand  Chinese  were  imported  into  Cuba  alone.  Of  the 
same  number  taken  to  Peru  within  twenty  years,  less  than 
ten  thousand  were  living  at  the  end  of  that  time.1  They 
were  driven  by  the  whips  of  overseers  to  bring  to  the 
shutes  of  the  Chincha  islands  so  many  tons  of  guano  a  day, 
to  be  shipped  for  English  and  American  ports.2  The  bar- 
barities of  the  trade  caused  the  importation  of  labor  to  be 
regulated  by  the  Peruvian  Government  in  1856,  and  a 
new  treaty  (1876)  makes  provision  for  the  rights  of  the 
laborer.  But  in  Cuba  it  has  continued  in  the  old  form, 
under  British  and  American  flags.  The  Chinese  Govern- 
ment, which  had  prohibited  the  traffic,  entered  into  con- 
vention with  the  French  and  the  English  to  suppress  it, 
in  1860  and  1866;  and  the  United  States  forbade  it  in 
1862.  The  convention  of  1866  established  provisions  for 
the  protection  of  the  emigrant,  to  be  inserted  in  the  con- 
tract ;  to  which  a  voluntary  assent  was  to  be  given  in  pres- 
ence of  a  Chinese  official,  while  the  agents  were  to  be 
respectable  persons  licensed  by  the  Chinese  authorities  ; 
and  the  list  was  finally  to  be  inspected  by  the  foreign  con- 
sul. But  even  these  provisions  are  criticised3  as  inade- 
quate to  protect  the  ignorant  against  cunning  and  greedy 
speculators ;  to  thwart  the  keen  scent  of  native  man- 
hunters,  of  whom  there  are  at  least  thirty  thousand  ; 4  or  to 
hold  agents  to  due  responsibility. 

Protests  have  not  been  wanting  from  the  respectable 
classes  in  Chinese  ports  against  this  exploitation  of  the 
Protests  ignorant  and  needy  by  native  and  foreign  mis- 
creants.  Dr.  Legge,  a  competent  witness,  ascribes 

1  Cooper's  Letter  to  Garrison,  i6th,  2d  mo.  1870. 
*  Weekly  Tribune  for  June  30, 1855. 
8  China  Review,  Sept.  and  Oct.,  1872. 
«  Ibid.,  September  and  October,  1873. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  153 

the  offence  against  strangers,  in  part,  to  this  cause; 
and  explains  the  greater  cordiality  of  Japan  by  the  fact 
that  in  matters  of  this  kind  we  have  given  her  less  "  reason 
to  fear  and  hate  us."  1 

Against  Americans  the  only  grievance  of  China  is  the 
treatment  of  her  free  emigrants  to  our  Pacific  m.  Treat- 
Coast.  The  new  gold  regions,  opened  here  in  the  mentof 

emigrants 

nineteenth  century,  conquered  the  strong  local  at-  toCaii- 
tachments  of  the'chinese,  as  the  New  World  had  foruia' 
roused  the  Spaniard  to  a  spirit  of  adventure  in  the  six- 
teenth. El  Dorado  was  now  the  western,  as  it  had  been 
the  eastern,  shore  of  the  continent ;  and  the  swift  steamers 
brought  more  yellow  Mongolians  across  the  Pacific  than 
the  heavy-sailing  galleons  had  borne  of  dark-browed  Cas- 
tilians  over  the  Atlantic.  Both  races  were  drawn  by  the 
sheen  of  gold,  which  knows  no  difference  of  race  ;  but  the 
hope  of  the  one  was  in  conquest,  that'  of  the  other  in  hon- 
est toil.  The.  Spaniards  represented  an  age  that  was  pass- 
ing away,  the  Chinese  one  that  was  opening.  The  one  was 
a  barbarizing,  the  other  a  civilizing,  force.  Beginning  with 
three  hundred  in  1849,  tne  number  of  Californian  Chinese 
had  risen  in  1856  to  forty  thousand  men  and  three  thousand 
women,  and  in  1869  to  ninety  thousand  persons,  —  more 
than  a  fifth  of  whom  returned.  At  present  their  numbers 
are  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand.  An  organ- 
ized importation  of  labor,  through  agents,  appears  to  have 
been  in  the  main  honorably  conducted,  on  free  and  fair 
contract ;  not,  as  was  charged,  by  the  sale  of  families  on 
security,  —  a  practice  which  would  be  regarded  as  criminal 
in  Chinese  cities  just  as  in  our  own. 

These  immigrants  smuggled  no  baneful  drug;  they 
hurled  no  cannon-balls  at  the  great  Republic  ;  stirred  no 

1  China.  Review,  November  and  December,  1872. 


154  ELEMENTS. 

strafe  for  putting  down  the  idolatries  of  Christendom  ; 
Indus-  made  no  attempt  to  proselyte  in  the  names  of 
try  a  Kung-futze  and  Fo.  They  brought  what  was 

stumbling  J 

block  in      most  needed  for  the  development  of  a  new  and  free 


,  and  willing  hands  to  apply  it  as  their 
employers  should  prescribe.1  But  they  were  imported  by 
invoice,  on  demand,  and  their  want  of  individuality  was 
like  an  influx  of  live  machinery.  Their  strange  aspect  and 
speech,  their  habit  of  herding,  and  their  share  of  the  low 
morals  which  are  so  apt  to  accompany  the  first  stages  of 
immigration,  naturally  made  them  objects  of  suspicion. 
Perhaps  many  of  the  better  class  of  citizens  dreaded  fresh 
experiences,  like  those  which  came  of  the  first  rush  of 
native  lawlessness  to  the  land  of  gold.  Such  elements  of 
the  situation  may  help  to  extenuate  the  subsequent  treat- 
ment of  the  strangers.  But  other  motives  were  more  po- 
tent. These  people  had  few  wants,  and  could  afford  to  work 
at  low  rates.  They  were  "  heathen,"  who  knew  nothing  of 
"  Bible  revelation,"  and  could  not  appreciate  the  "  offices 
of  Christ."  They  invited  persecution  by  their  weakness, 
as  exiles  in  a  civilization  utterly  unlike  their  own.  For 
these  and  similar  reasons,  their  very  virtues  seemed  to 
rouse  a  spirit  against  them  in  the  free  State  of  California, 
strikingly  similar  to  that  of  the  Slave  Power  towards  its 
victims.  Contempt  of  the  rights  of  weaker  races  is  an 
unlovely  national  trait  which  we  have  scarcely  begun  to 
control.  Many  of  the  colonists  of  the  Pacific  States  sprung 
from  the  bosom  of  slavery,  or  'else  of  that  moral  paralysis 
of  the  North  which  was  its  consequence,  and  whose  in- 
stinct it  was  to  sacrifice  humanity  to  the  interests  of  traffic. 
The  cry  of  danger  to  American  labor  was  raised,  in  face  of 
the  American  claim  to  have  superseded  all  oppressive  sys- 
tems of  the  Old  World  by  free  competition  for  the  rewards 

1  Hiibner's.tfa:;«M?  Round  ike  World)  p.  156. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  155 

of  honest  toil.  It  seemed  easier  to  put  down  Chinese  cheap 
labor  by  "hoodlum "  legislation  and  brute  force  than  Barbari. 
to  trust  America  to  the  spirit  of  hospitality  and  the  ties  in  a 
law  of  justice.  The  lowest  vagabond  learned  to 
treat  these  guests  of  Industry  as  if  they  were  horse-thieves 
or  mad  dogs  ;  and  the  very  boys  were  set  upon  them  by 
the  cry  that  these  "  barbarians  "  were  stealing  their  chances 
of  employment.  They  pr.oved  the  extent  to  which  a  repub- 
lic can  assume  the  nature  of  a  despotism.  They  had  come 
from  China  to  America  to  learn  the  possibilities  of  cruelty 
in  government.  They  were  burdened  with  legalized  wrongs; 
paid  license  taxes  for  the  right  to  work  abandoned  mines, 
and  a  special  police-tax,  pronounced  illegal  by  the  judiciary  ; 
their  testimony  against  whites  was  refused  ;  they  were  out- 
lawed by  the  courts,  as  incapable  of  respecting  the  (Chris- 
tian, not  the  Chinese)  oath.  They  were  free  game  for 
rogues  and  pretended  officials.  They  were  stoned,  beaten, 
worried  by  dogs,  mobbed,  and  murdered  with  impunity. 
Secret  societies  were  formed  to  suppress  them.  Their 
employers  were  persecuted  ;  mills,  breweries,  hop-kilns, 
fruit-stores,  were  destroyed  to  punish  the  courage  that 
withstood  these  outrages  on  free  labor.  Even  churches 
were  torn  down  because  opened  on  Sundays  to  Chinese 
pupils. 

Unquestionably  the  mass  of  this  emigration  was  of  the 
lower  class.     It  was  almost  wholly  from  Canton,  or  The  te»- 
rather  from  the  British  port  of  Hong-kong,  ship-  timony- 
ment  to  our  coast  being  a  result  of  the  opium  war  of  I844.1 
Mostly  adventurers,  seeking  to  better  their  fortunes  and 
return,  the  laborers  brought  with  them  neither  wives  nor 
children.     A  foreign  world  offers  no  inducement  to  a  Chi- 
nese married  woman.     But  there  was  foreign  demand  for 
the  sex  in  less  worthy  capacities,  and  a  corresponding  class 

1  Testimony  of  Rev.  O.  Gibson  before  a  committee  of  the  State  Senate,  in  1876;  also, 
Letter  of  Dr.  Williams  to  same. 


156  ELEMENTS. 

of  speculators  in  China  was  ready  for  the  opportunity. 
These  men  bought  or  stole  women  of  the  lowest  class  at 
home  for  prostitution  in  San  Francisco ;  and  the  disease 
and  demoralization  spread  thereby  was,  as  usual,  ascribed 
to  this  imported  supply  rather  than  to  the  vicious  tastes 
which  beckoned  over  and  fed  a  degradation  from  abroad, 
because  the  native  sort  was  not  sufficiently  bestial !  The 
Senate  testimony  of  1876  presents  the  spectacle  of  an 
elaborate  effort  to  fix  upon  the  Chinese,  as  a  whole,  the 
odium  of  such  degradation  in  every  form  as  called  for 
instant  suppression  of  this  foreign  element  by  the  State  ; 
while  the  evidence  shows  that  the  feeders  of  Chinese  gamb- 
ling and  prostitution  were,  to  a  large  extent,  native  Ameri- 
can ;  that  the  laws  were  not  executed  ;  that  the  police 
took  bribes  to  cover  the  offenders  ;  that  the  Chinese  com- 
panies had  no  interest  in  these  vices,  and  could  not  prevent 
them.  It  was  even  admitted  that  the  first  serious  effort  to 
suppress  the  nuisances  had  been  so  successful  that  the 
gambling  dens  were  closed,  and  the  importation  of  lewd 
women  had  ceased.1  On  the  one  hand,  officials  reported 
all  Chinese  to  be  liars  and  law-breakers  ;  while  it  was  gener- 
ally confessed  that  the  difference  of  language  and  customs 
formed  an  impassable  barrier  to  mutual  understanding,  and 
to  the  application  of  any  thing  like  justice  in  their  case.2 
They  are  described  as  living  under  a  reign  of  terror ;  yet 
the  statistics  of  crime  did  not  bear  out  the  statement,  the 
proportion  of  Chinese  in  the  State  Prison  being  but  little 
above  the  ratio  of  their  numbers  to  those  of  the  population 
as  a  whole.3 

Whatever  vicious  elements  exist  in  the  Chinese  quarters 
of  our  coast  cities  can  certainly  be  eliminated  by  righteous 
laws,  applied  to  the  importation  and  distribution  of  the  im- 
migrants, and  executed  in  good  earnest.  Political  rights 

1  Testimony  of  G   H.  Gray,  Surveyor  of  Customs;  of  McKenzie,  Gibson,  Bovee,  &c. 

2  Testimony  of  Ellis,  Chief  of  Police.  3  Report,  p.  173. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  157 

should  depend  for  this  class,  as  for  all  classes  of  our  popu- 
lation, on  the  ability  to  read  and  write  our  language,  —  a  rule 
which  will  doubtless  be  furthered  by  the  aid  of  the  better 
informed  among  them,  while  it  should  form  an  important 
part  in  the  educational  system  of  the  State.  Equally  in- 
dispensable are  trained  interpreters.  The  churches  will 
make  themselves  more  useful  in  such  kinds  of  instruction 
than  in  the  vain  attempt  to  proselyte  for  Christian  doctrine 
in  this  field.  Some  of  the  immigrants  are  cultivated  men, 
and  good  public  speakers.  Mr.  A.  D.  Richardson  wrote,  in 
1869,  that  as  male  servants  the  Chinese  are  superior  in 
morals  to  any  other  race.  No  Chinese  beggars  were  seen 
in  the  streets,  and  the  first  of  the  race  unable  to  read  his 
own  language  had  yet  to  make  his  appearance  in  Califor- 
nia.1 Dr.  Williams  says  the  emigrants  are  superior  to  the 
average  Chinese  in  enterprise,  education,  and  skill.2  Indus- 
trial reports  prove  them  to  be  all  employed  ;  and,  if  sup- 
planting white  labor,  it  must  be  by  greater  fidelity,  as  well 
as  frugality.  If  their  work  is  merely  mechanical,  its  value 
will  not,  in  the  long  run,  compete  with  labor  that  is  more 
skilled.  As  for  its  general  effect,  at  present,  many  intelli- 
gent witnesses  believed  that  there  were  more  white  per- 
sons employed  in  California  than  there  would  be  without 
them.3 

Spite  of  persecution  they  have  continued  to  arrive,  win- 
nowed in  by  Western  breezes  through  the  Golden 
Gate.    A  patient  race,  inured  to  hard  lot,  they  have 
done  the  work  that  waited  for  them  and  needed  them  ;  proves  his 
by  all  accounts,  the  most  efficient  and  least  trouble-  work.*0 
some  laborers  on  the  Pacific  shores.    Eight  thousand 
strong,  they  opened  the  mountain-passes  for  the  great  rail- 
way that  makes  the  continent  a  political  unit.    They  proved 
the  most  orderly  sailors  on  our  Pacific   steamers.4     They 

1  Atlantic  Monthly,  Dec  ,  1869.  *  Letter  to  the  Committee. 

8  Testimony  of  Gibson,  Brooks,  &c.  *  Hiibner,  p.  186. 


158  ELEMENTS. 

were  invincible  because  they  met  wants  stronger  than 
human  will,  and  were  an  indispensable  element  in  the  devel- 
opment of  a  continent.  They  were  not  enriched  by  credits 
mobiliers,  but  their  toil  made  all  after-times  their  debtor. 
They  were  ready  for  all  functions,  independent  or  menial ; 
did  the  laundry  work  and  the  gardening,  and  gleaned  after 
the  whites  in  the  gold-fields.  They  taught  how  to  organize 
mutual-aid.  Six  great  companies,  under  elective  officers  of 
high  character,  watch  over  all  their  members,  aid  them  in 
difficulty,  find  them  occupation,  and  send  home  the  dead. 
As  elsewhere,  from  day-laborers  they  have  become  capital- 
ists, advance  all  forms  of  enterprise,  and  serve  all  indus- 
trial uses.1  Their  immigration  is  a  national  blessing,  not 
only  as  productive  force,  but  as  stimulant  to  the  morals  of 
industry.  Their  cheap  labor  is  a  test  of  our  theoretic  and 
practical  liberty  ;  their  inaptness  for  Christianization  our 
school  of  religious  universality. 

Many  voices  have  been  raised  against  the  barbarous 
race-prejudice  under  which  they  have  suffered  ;  advocating 
their  admission,  under  proper  provisions,  to  that  equality 
in  civil  and  political  rights  which  our  republican  theory 
dictates,  and  every  consideration  of  wise  policy  demands.2 
A  native  Protective  Association  was  formed  to  screen 
them  from  outrage,  and  counteract  the  cruelties  of  the 
laws.  Not  less  ably  have  they  argued  their  own  cause. 
Their  "  Remonstrance,"  written  by  a  young  Chinese  mer- 
chant, is  one  of  the  most  impressive  pleas  against  cruel  and 
dishonest  legislation  upon  record.3  The  publication  of 
"  The  Oriental,"  edited  in  part  by  a  Chinese,  and  with  the 
help  of  Chinese  associated  companies,  did  good  service  in 
repealing  the  acts  passed  in  1854  for  reducing  this  unoffend- 
ing race  to  peonage,  or  expelling  them  from  the  soil.4 

1  Pumpelly,  p.  252. 

2  Atlantic  Monthly,  Dec  ,    1869.     Also  Mr.  H.  C.  Bennett's   excellent  Address  at  San 
Francisco  in  1870;  and  Pumpelly,  p.  265. 

3  It  will  be  found  in  full  in  Dr.  Speer's  work  on  China.  *  Speer,  p.  660. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  159 

The  dread  of  "  cheap  labor  "  is  gratuitous.  For  many 
reasons  the  Chinese  are  not  likely  to  come  in  Fearo{ 
swarms.  They  do  not,  as  a  people,  love  to  emi-  "cheap 
grate  ;  few  women  have  crossed  the  ocean,  and  l! 
these  not  of  the  better  class  ;  no  people  feel  such  moral 
pressure  to  return  and  be  buried  with  their  fathers.  The 
increase  of  immigrants  is  slow  ;  not  more  than  twice  as 
many  come  yearly  as  came  twenty  years  since.  "  Under 
good  systems  of  mining  and  railroads,  Chinese  laborers 
would  all  be  wanted  at  home."  l  They  will  come  to  our 
Western  shores  as  fast  as  they  are  needed,  and  no  faster. 
They  in  fact  increase  the  amount  of  native  white  labor  ; 
the  productive  result  immensely  exceeds  the  value  of  earn- 
ings carried  home  by  those  who  return.  As  for  cheap 
wages,  their  natural  shrewdness  will  not  overlook  financial 
opportunity,  and  their  special  aptitudes  will  command 
special  value  in  a  free  market.  Labor  combinations  to 
exclude  individuals  or  classes  from  the  fair  competition 
which  all  alike  demand  afford  a  poor  justification  for  the 
claim  of  the  Saxon  to  superior  culture,  and  for  the  right 
he  assumes  to  supersede  an  industrial  civilization  like  that 
of  China  even  on  her  own  soil.  What  can  be  their  effect 
on  the  Chinese  but  to  add  new  grounds  to  their  distrust  of 
a  "  barbarian  "  Christendom  ? 

Notwithstanding  these  causes  of  offence,  there  has  been 
an  openness  to  foreign    art,    science,  and  policy, 
which  confutes  the  old  theories  of  voluntary  isola- 


tion.     The  minister  Wen-siang  said  to  Mr.  Burlin- 

teaching. 

game   on    occasion    of  a  presentation  of  pictures 
from  Washington  :    "  Our  maxim  is   to  inquire  in   every 
thing  for  the  best  method,  and   to  adopt  it  for  our  own, 
wherever   it  originates."      It  was  natural  to  import   the 
sugar-cane,  spices,  and  fragrant  woods  from  India  and  the 

1  Minister  Seward,  in  Public  Documents  on  Foreign  Relations,  1876. 


l6o  ELEMENTS. 

isles  ;  to  accept  improvements  in  glass  and  bronze  work  ; 
to  admire  Swiss  watch-making  ;  to  build  steamers  and  mer- 
chant-ships, as  well  as  armed  craft  for  coast  service,  on 
European  models  ;  and  to  skip  the  stages  in  gun-making 
in  com-  between  the  old  arquebus  and  the  modern  per- 
war  ciission-lock.  A  bolder  step  was  to  put  their  armies 


into  the  hands  of  British  and  American  officers 
for  the  suppression  of  the  Tai-pings.  They  repudiated 
the  proceedings  of  a  British  agent  for  the  purchase  of 
war-ships,  as  being  in  conflict  with  their  laws  ;  yet  have 
not  hesitated  to  charter  foreign  vessels,  and  to  invest  in 
steam  navigation  of  the  Yang-tze  on  a  large  scale.  The 
great  avenues  to  the  heart  of  the  empire  are  thrown 
open  to  these  revolutionary  heralds.  Steamboats  of  large 
tonnage  are  owned  in  China.1  In  '1872,  there  were  eigh- 
teen United  States  steamers  on  that  river,  running  six 
hundred  miles  inland,2  and  an  Oregon  line  was  being  built. 
The  American  river  and  coast  tonnage  is  already  put  at 
thirty  thousand  tons.  Mr.  Burlingame  introduced  the 
terrible  telegraph  ;  and,  though  the  Government  cancelled 
its  agreement  with  one  company,  there  is  a  school  of  tele- 
graphy, and  soon  the  native  merchant  will  consult  the  wire 
for  market  values,  and  the  delicate  Mongolian  hand  touch 
it  in  "  Frisco  "  without  fear.  A  magnetic  observatory  sends 
its  reports  from  Shang-hai.  Prince  Kung  is  at  the  head  of 
the  administration.  The  Government  has  adopted  a  con- 
sular system.  Emigration  is  free.  The  foreign  customs- 
office  is  directed  by  foreign  residents  of  good  culture, 
under  an  inspector-general  of  remarkable  administrative 
faculty.  So  ardently  have  the  new  commercial  opportu- 
nities been  seized,  that  the  balance  of  trade  is  on  the 
native  side,  and  the  competitive  energy  of  the  people 
has  quite  overturned  the  business  monopolies  of  the  past. 
The  first  Chinese  railroad  (1876)  is  but  fifty  years  behind 

1  Knox.  a  Brooks,  p.  138. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  l6l 

the  first  English  one,  and  is  engineered  by  the  son  of 
one  of  the  first  movers  in  applying  steam  to  travel.  The 
Japanese  already  go  by  rail  from  Yedo  to  Yokohama.  Nor 
can  it  be  long  before  the  electric  stream  will  bind  to- 
gether all  Eastern  Asia,  and  the  iron  horse  push  his  new 
mysteries  through  the  broken  spells  of  Fung-shui  and  the 
ravaged  sanctities  of  ancestral  graves. 

In  August,  1872,  the  China  mail  announced  the  first 
number  of  a  newspaper  issued  under  native  direction,  on 
a  progressive  and  anti-obstructive  basis. 

The  appreciation  of  Western  therapeutic  science  by  the 
Chinese,  ever  since  Dr.  Parker  opened  his  noble  ophthalmic 
hospital  at  Canton  in  1835,  forms  by  far  the  most  interest- 
ing chapter  in  the  history  of  European  relations  with  the 
Empire.  The  doors  of  Drs.  Parker,  Lockhart,  and  Hobson 
were  crowded  by  thousands  of  patients  of  all  classes, 
whose  gratitude  was  most  earnest  and  enduring.1  Works 
of  medical  and  anatomical  science  were  eagerly  studied  by 
native  youths.  In  twenty  years,  more  than  fifty  thousand 
patients  had  been  entered  on  the  records  of  the  Canton 
hospital.  Other  similar  institutions  were  planted  with 
like  success.  The  heroic  humanity  of  the  English  and 
American  surgeons,  who  shrank  from  no  personal  peril, 
was  respected  by  all  parties  throughout  the  barbarous 
conflicts  of  Triads,  Tai-pings,  and  Imperialists  for  the 
possession  of  Shang-hai,  in  185 3-54^ 

The  visit  of  Pin-tchuen  to  Europe  resulted  in  Shang- 
hai College,  with  its  European  staff.  An  English 

In  culture. 

school   was  founded   in   1862,  and    raised    to    the 

rank  of    a  college    in    1866,   for  advanced  native  pupils.3 


1  Lockhart's  Medical  Missionary  in  China  (London,  1861);  especially  the  Memorial 
of  Thanks  presented  Dr.  L.  by  more  than  fifty  native  merchants  and  gentlemen,  p.  283. 

*  Lockhart ;  also  Williams,  II.  346-351 ;  Brine,  p.  59 ;  Martin,  II.  493  ;  Nevius,  p.  341 ; 
Dr.  Parker's  Reports  in  Chin.  Repos,,  1841-1843.  For  Chinese  tributes  to  the  works  of  Dr. 
Dudgeon,  see  China  Review,  May  and  June,  1875. 

8  Chinese  Recorder ;  June,  1871. 

II 


1 62  ELEMENTS. 

The  Pe-king  University,  founded  by  Kung  in  1867,  for 
completing  native  education  by  studies  in  foreign  lan- 
guages, after  some  opposition  and  much  discouragement 
was  revived  by  the  arrival  of  Dr.  Martin,  its  president, 
from  America  (1869),  who  was  cheered  by  the  unexpected 
tordiality  of  the  mandarins,  and  has  written  favorably  of 
its  prospects.1  His  translation  of  Wheaton's  International 
Law  has  been  adopted  as  a  classic  by  a  commission  ap- 
pointed by  the  Prince.  A  hundred  and  twenty  Chinese 
students  are  now  (1876)  preparing  in  America  for  func- 
tions in  the  military  and  foreign  service  of  the  Empire,  and 
large  numbers  are  in  the  literary  institutions  of  Europe. 

The  desire  of  the  Government  to  preserve  cordial  re- 
lations with  Western  powers  has  been  shown  by  vari- 
ous acts  that  would  once  have  seemed  impossible.  The 
Tien-tsin  massacre,  caused  by  popular  suspicion  not  un- 
like the  delusions  of  mediaeval  Christendom  about  the 
Jews,  or  the  later  witchcraft  mania,  was  atoned  for  to 
the  full  extent  of  its  power  by  execution  of  twenty-one 
persons,  banishment  of  twenty-five,  and  an  indemnity  of 
3,500,000  francs,  for  losses  by  fire,  and  for  the  families  of 
the  dead.2  "  In  other  countries,"  says  Dr.  Williams,  perti- 
nently, "this  would  be  considered  reparation  ;  but  it  is  much 
the  case  that,  in  China,  nothing  the  people  or  government 
can  do  is  regarded  by  the  majority  of  foreigners  as  right."  3 

Mr.  Seward's  reception  by  the  court  was  most  cordial ; 
yet  he  found  that  the  Shang-hai  people  "  talk  of  the 
Burlingame  treaty  only  to  declare  the  utter  absurdity  of 
expecting  any  good  thing  to  come  out  of  China  except 
through  blockade  and  bombardment."4  The  dissatisfac- . 
tion  thus  prevailing  at  Shang-hai  is  a  natural  result  of  the 
new  aspect  of  trade,  involving  smaller  individual  gains 
and  greater  freedom  of  competition  than  before  China 

1  Am.  Or.  Soc.,  May,  1870.  2  Journal  Officielde  Paris,  Nov.  25,  1871. 

8  Am.  Or.  Soc.,  May,  1871.  «  Seward,  pp.  114,  160,  184,  185,   216,  217. 


','<„ 

EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  *  /      163      /^ 

>:,         •/ 

was  opened  to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  —  a  change  ipfeffec&Vy 

ing  which  the  natives  themselves  have  been  a  very'i^J^r-       /' 
tant  element1      A  minister  has  now  been    appointed    tt^> 
the  United  States;  and  China  is  on  purely  international     */ 
grounds.  x. 

All  this  recognition  of  the  outside  world  may  seem  - 
tame,  compared  with  the  brilliant  expansion  of  progres- 
sive Japan  within  these  few  years  ;  but  it  may  be  all  the 
surer  for  its  moderation,  so  fully  in  harmony  with  the 
genius  of  the  people,  and  for  the  natural  show  of  reluc- 
tance with  which  official  China  accepts  the  ominous  rails 
and  wires  of  a  new  order  of  things. 

Let  us  do  them  the  justice  to  remember  that  the  instinct 
which  prompts  them  to  resist  the  sudden  transfer- 
ence of  Occidental  consolidation  and  its  forces  of   ^isdomof 

Chinese  in 

machinery  into  a  vast  civilization,  which  has  been  resisting 


developing  itself  from  the  oldest  times  by  methods 
precisely  opposite,  is  one  of  wise  foresight  and 
proper  self-defence.  The  issue  of  such  forced  discontinu- 
ity and  reconstruction  de  novo  would  be  fearfully  destruct- 
ive ;  and  no  language  can  express  the  dismay  of  intelligent 
Chinese  at  the  prospect.  Our  own  scientific  principle  of 
evolution  should  teach  us  to  respect  the  jealous  conserva- 
tism of  a  system  that  has  grown  so  slowly  and  normally 
as  this.  It  is  a  sign  of  wisdom  in  the  Japanese  that  they 
are  already  substituting  home-education  of  their  young 
men  for  training  in  the  ill-related  schools  of  the  West. 

And  it  surely  becomes  us  not  to  force  too  eagerly  a  for- 
eign policy  which  it  requires  all  the  statesmanship  China 
can  muster  to  conduct  to  fortunate  issues  against  race  pre- 
judices, and  their  long  experience  of  the  selfish  motives 
and  conduct  of  European  traders.2  Let  us  fully  recognize 

1  Hvibner's  Ramble,  &c..  p.  469  ;  also  Western  Review,  Oct.,  1868. 

1  For  an  admirable  instance  of  full  understanding  of  these  motives,  and  a  liberal  policy  of 
intercourse,  see  the  Secret  Memorial  of  Tsen-kwo-fan,  Governor  of  the  Two  Kwang, 
Westminster  Review  for  Oct.,  1868. 


164  ELEMENTS. 

the  truth,  so  well  stated  by  the  "  Westminster  Review,"  as 
early  as  1868,  that  "China  has  already  reached,  so  far  as 
foreign  relations  go,  a  normal  condition  of  peace  and  pro- 
gressive concession,  and  inaugurated  a  state  of  affairs  in 
which  vindictiveness  and  cruelty  are  buried,  and  good  faith 
and  forbearance  are  prominent."  And  we  cordially  en- 
dorse the  statement  of  one  of  the  latest  writers  on  the 
Far  East,  that  no  Western  nation  has  shown  itself  capable 
of  so  extensive  a  change  of  policy  in  the  same  number  of 
years  as  China. 

The  exclusiveness  of  Japan,  continued  for  two  and  a 

half  centuries,  from  causes  similar  to  those  which 
reform.86  determined  the  policy  of  China,  was  forcibly  broken 

up  by  Commodore  Perry  and  Consul  Harris,  after 
the  British  had  captured  Tien-tsin.  In  1857,  the  Sio-goun, 
resisting  a  strong  conservative  party,  made  treaty  with 
America  and  England.  The  new  and  free  relations  with 
Western  powers  were  originally  rather  matters  of  necessity 
than  desire  ;  the  leaders  of  the  revolution  being  at  first 
apparently  opposed  to  foreigners,  but  finding  themselves 
obliged,  from  the  dissolution  of  ideas  they  were  produc- 
ing, to  seek  outward  means  of  reinforcement,  and  not  less 
moved  by  strong  desire  to  participate  in  the  profits  of 
foreign  trade.1  The  recent  revolution  has  abolished  the 
right  of  the  nobles  to  levy  taxes  or  issue  money.  The 
currency  is  made  uniform  ;  railroads,  telegraphs,  and  mails 
are  in  operation  ;  a  university  for  advanced  culture  employs 
nearly  fifty  teachers  ;  hundreds  of  students  have  been  sent 
to  Western  schools  ;  and  European  science  is  applied  to 
the  army  and  navy,  and  to  opening  the  resources  of  the 
country.  The  heir  to  the  throne  put  on  a  par  with  other 
boys  at  school  ;  court  officials  in  dress  coats  of  marvellous 
cut ;  the  Mikado  suddenly  exposed  to  public  view ;  the 
daimios  self-suppressed ;  the  long  steps  taken  towards  uni- 

1    Mossman's  New  Japan. 


EXTERNAL    RELATIONS.  165 

versal  education,  —  form  a  picture  of  radical  change  of  which 
no  Asiatic  people  was  ever  deemed  capable.  Here  is  ap- 
parently a  total  absence  of  prejudices.  Kido,  leader  of  a 
clan,  said  that  three  years  would  be  sufficient  to  remove 
hereditary  rights  and  change  the  habits  of  the  people. 
This  is  a  step  beyond  the  Confucian  estimate  of  the  trans- 
forming capacity  of  good  morals.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  an  Eastern  civilization  can  be  unmade  and  remade 
by  edict,  as  it  were  in  the  turn  of  a  hand. 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  resources  of  the  race  whose 
leading  characteristics  have  now  been  described,  and  to 
recognize  its  power  of  sympathy,  —  in  other  words,  to  reach 
the  elements  of  universality  in  this  Religion  of  Organized 
Work,  —  we  must  note  the  composition  of  the  Chinese  peo- 
ple and  the  nature  of  its  habitat. 


V. 
ETHNIC     TYPE. 


ETHNIC     TYPE. 


r  I  ^HE  startling  Linnaean  description,  —  Homo  monstrosus, 
•*•  macroceplialus,  capite-conico,  Chinensis,  —  can  hardly 
be  said  to  prepare  us  for  the  commonplace  and  prosaic. 
Yet  such  is  the  uniformity  of  the  Chinese  type,  The  Chi_ 
that  sculptors  use  one  model  for  hundreds  of  faces.  nese  Eth- 
It  is  like  the  homogeneousness  of  an  undeveloped 
order  of  life.  To  eyes  accustomed  to  the  mobility  of  Aryan 
features  this  placid  platitude  seems  almost  inorganic,  and 
these  accumulated  living  atoms  are  like  dust  of  iron  or 
heaps  of  sand.  But  their  lack  of  individuality  would  natu- 
rally allow  freedom  of  combination  ;  and  it  may  be 
the  result  of  a  corresponding  precedent  fusion.  It  is 
a  well-recognized  law,  that  the  resources  of  a  great 
civilization  depend  on  the  crossing  of  races.  And  such  is 
the  extent  of  this  fusion  in  all  developed  communities,  that 
some  physiologists  have  denied  the  reality  of  race  distinc- 
tions, as  mere  theoretic  solutions  of  problems  too  compli- 
cated for  analysis.1  A  people  who  have  shown  themselves 
competent  to  such  constructive  force  as  the  Chinese  can 
hardly  be  an  exception  to  the  rule,  —  a  pure,  unmixed  variety. 
Yet,  as  was  stated  in  the  outset,  the  elements  are  limited, 
and  the  result  is  unique  among  nations.  There  has  been 
an  intermingling  of  Asiatic,  chiefly  Mongolian,  tribes,  whose 


24,  25,  29. 


I/O  ELEMENTS. 

marks  are  clearly  visible  in  the  varieties  of  the  national 
character.  Nevertheless,  the  race-type  as  a  whole  is,  as  we 
have  said,  the  most  distinctly  individual  in  our  existing 
civilizations. 

Distinct  as  he  is,  the  Chinese  seems  to  touch  the  ethno- 
logic world  at  a  great  variety  of  points.  In  hint  and  shadow 
he  is  a  kind  of  Middle  Kingdom.  By  his  black  eyes,  thin 
beard,  high  cheek  bones,  coarse  lips,  and  impassive  air,  he 
resembles  the  American  race ;  by  his  facial  angle  he  ap- 
proaches trie  Aryan  ;  by  his  flattened  nose,  the  negro.  He 
has  Mongolic  features  softened  as  by  a  feminine  element, 
and  bleached  as  by  some  Samoyede  or  Siberian  infusion  ; 
his  half-wild  expression  suggests  the  Greek  satyr ;  and  the 
apparent  obliqueness  of  his  eyelids,  owing  to  the  very 
slight  opening  of  their  inner  angles,  points  to  his  origin  in 
those  high  latitudes  where  Nature  is  observed  to  protect 
the  lachrymal  structure  of  ruminants  in  the  same  way.1 

Thus  widely  related  in  form,  the  Chinese  face  is  capable 

of   much  dignity  and  beauty.      The  conventional 

Quahty  of  chinaman  on  Canton  ware  is  a  caricature.     I  have 

the  type. 

myself  seen  a  large  collection  of  photographic  por- 
traits,2 in  which  the  phrenological  and  aesthetic  development 
is  fully  equal  on  the  whole  to  the  European.  Williams 
observes  that  Chinese  women  resemble  the  Europeans, 
more  than  Hindu  or  Persian,  in  preserving  their  vigor 
after  child-birth.3  The  beauty  of  the  maidens  is  celebrated 
by  Fleming,  and  their  healthy  development  and  delicacy  of 
manners  by  Courcy.  Whether  the  difference  between  the 
natives  of  northern  and  southern  provinces  is  as  great  as 
has  been  represented  is  doubtful ;  but  the  muscularity  and 
shapeliness  of  the  peasantry  in  general  is  beyond  dispute : 
and  in  this  respect,  at  least,  they  deserve  the  name  of  the 

1  Smith's  Natural  History  of  the  Human  Species,  p.  284. 

2  In  possession  of  my  friend,  Mr.  T.  F.  Hunt,  of  Salem,  Mass. 
«  Middle  Kingdom,  I.  37. 


ETHNIC    TYPE.  1^1 

"  Anglo-Saxons  of  Asia."  Owing  partly  to  causes  in  the 
climate,  and  to  their  industrious  habits,  they  are  superior 
in  physique  to  the  surrounding  races. 

Their  Mongolic  relation  is  shown  in  a  certain  slow  rate 
of  maturation,  —  a  prolonged  infancy  ;  full  stature 
not  being  reached  till  the  age  of  twenty-five,  when 
the  first  shoots  of  the  beard  appear.1  Many  old 
nomadic  traits  adhere  to  the  Chinese  by  reason  of  this 
inertia,  lasting  through  all  changes  ;  such  as  the  habit  of  * 
sprinkling  drums,  and  even  doors,  with  blood  ;  sacrificing 
the  horse  ;  imbibing  valor  by  tasting  the  flesh  or  blood  of 
dead  braves,  even  of  criminals  ; 2  divining ;  placing  the 
house  door  so  as  to  look  southward  ;  sitting  on  mats  ;  drill 
in  archery ;  great  hunting  expeditions  in  the  opening  of 
winter ;  paying  service  to  dead  ancestors,  and  to  the  ele- 
ments ;  using  the  rod  on  criminals  ;  holding  the  first  wife 
in  special  honor  ;3  making  generals  responsible  for  the  de- 
feat of  their  armies,  or  for  the  death  of  princes  ;  toleration 
of  beliefs ;  and  claim  of  universal  sway. 

Their  physical  endurance  also  has,  perhaps,  a  Mongolic 
origin  ;  all  accounts  describing  the  Tartar  as  having  "  brown 
skin,  large  high  shoulders,  immense  neck,  bony  hands, 
short  legs,  spread  nose,  black  oblique  eyes."4  Not  less 
striking  the  connection  of  their  strong  local  and  clan  in- 
terests with  the  tribal  organization  of  the  Mongols.  The 
annals  of  feudal  China  constantly  suggest  the  "  twenty-four 
tribes  and  forty-nine  banners  of  Inner  Mongolia,  each  com- 
prising two  thousand  families,  and  under  hereditary  prin- 
ces." The  predaceous  spirit  of  these  tribes,  —  the  Turk  in 
them,  —  which  caused  the  Christian  world  to  regard  them 
as  demons  sent  to  scourge  mankind,  has  but  a  dim  and 
faint  survival  in  many  familiar  elements  of  Chinese  char- 
acter. Carpini's  description  of  their  features  differs  but 

»  Morache,  p.  149.  »  Marco  Polo  (Yule\  I.  61. 

8  Ibid.  I.  51.  4  Courcy,  p.  30. 


I/2  ELEMENTS. 

little  from  those  of  the  modern  Chinese.     "  In  habits,"  he 
says,  "  they  are  more  obedient  to  their  lords  than  any  other 
people ;  they  honor  one  another  exceedingly  ;  they  return 
carefully  beasts  that  have  gone  astray ;  towards  foreigners 
they  are   insolent  ;  they  are   intolerant   exactors,  covetous 
possessors,  and  niggardly  givers."  l    We  can  hardly  wonder 
at  this  hard  judgment,  when  we  consider  the  sufferings  of 
the  old  monk  in  wintering  on  the  Tartar  steppes.     But  it  is 
*easy  to  recognize  in  the  traits  he  notes  qualities  of  char- 
acter very  commonly  ascribed  to  the  children  of  Han. 
With   these  Mongols  of  Inner  Asia  the  Chinese  have 
been  in  constant  contact,  by  war  and  by  trade,  with 

Ethnic  >  "* 

relations  alternate  invasion  and  retreat,  and  frequent  con- 
Mon  'ok  (luest  by  b°tn  sides,  from  very  early  times.  Eight 
centuries  before  Christ,  —  perhaps  earlier,  —  they 
ravaged  Northern  China.  Chi-hwang-ti  drove  them  out, 
and  built  the  Great  Wall  to  exclude  them.  The  rulers  of 
the  Han  dynasty  (A.D.  202-255)  bribed  them  to  quiet  by 
giving  their  own  daughters  in  marriage  to  their  chiefs.  In 
the  T'sin  (264-420)  they  divided  the  empire.  Hordes  of 
Neutschin,  Kitan,  Kin,  followed  each  other,  moulding  its 
destinies.  Military  colonies  came  and  went  on  both 
sides.  Large  numbers  of  independent  kingdoms  were 
founded  by  Tartar  conquests,  even  within  the  empire.  At 
last,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  Kublai  conquers  China,  and 
a  Mongol  dynasty  holds  it  for  nearly  a  century.  After  the 
succeeding  glories  of  the  native  Ming  come  the  Man-chus, 
whose  end  is  not  yet.  With  the  exception  of  the  Man-chus, 
who  are  in  many  respects  of  a  higher  type,  these  Tartar, 
or  rather  Mongolic,  races  seem  to  have  supplied  inorganic 
elements,  to  be  vitalized  by  structure  only  in  the  Chinese 
organization.  Elsewhere  they  are  gathered  up  and  swept 
on  as  by  whirlwinds,  and  perish  in  their  birth.  At  the 
word  of  Tching-gis  Khan  they  spring  into  being,  instinct 

1  Hakluyt  Collection,  1599-      Vol.  I.,  p.  6oj 


ETHNIC    TYPE.  173 

with  the  dream  of  universal  conquest ;  they  sweep  across 
the  field  of  history  on  their  wild  horses,  and  as  suddenly 
dissolve  :  without  special  faith  ;  without  enthusiasm  for 
uses  ;  without  permanent  result ;  not  organizing  empires, 
but  overriding  them,  and  terribly  destructive.  Their  cry 
was,  "  One  World,  one  King  !  "  and  they  aimed  at  the  re- 
motest bounds  of  space.  Remusat  counts  fifteen  embas- 
sies, sent  by  them  to  European  potentates,1  during  their 
short  career,  most  of  them  claiming  absolute  submission. 

This  instinct  of  universal  sway  has  found  its  civilized 
development  in  Chinese  institutions,  while  its  cruder  stages 
survive  in  the  manifold  forms  of  childish  self-sufficiency 
peculiar  to  that  people.  The  extreme  simplicity  of  the 
Mongolian  mind  is  further  represented  in  Chinese  frugality 
and  fear  of  innovation. 

The  Man-chus,  intermediate  between  Chinese  and  Mon- 
gols, represent  the  constructive,  as  the  Mongols  do  with  the 
the  inorganic,  elements  in  Chinese  character.  They  Manchus- 
are  of  Tunguse  origin,  lighter  in  complexion  than  the 
Chinese,  have  more  prominent  features  and  fuller  beard, 
and  are  endowed  with  an  elasticity  and  love  of  humor  in 
striking  distinction  from  the  qualities  of  other  Mongolic 
races.2  Rising  to  national  importance  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  rapidly  appropriating  Chinese  culture,  they 
mastered  the  empire  in  the  seventeenth,  after  enduring 
many  aggressions  ; 3  and  have  held  their  ground,  like  the 
Turks  in  Europe,  ever  since.  From  them  have  come  govern- 
mental capacity,  largeness  of  plan,  organizing  power :  they 
had  the  art  of  setting  others  to  work,  and  bringing  order 
from  chaos  by  forces  of  discipline.  Their  name  means  mas- 
ter f  and  they  are  in  fact  the  martinets  of  China.  Their 
power  of  assimilating  elements  of  constructive  force  had 

1  Melanges  Asiafiques,  I.  407.  '  Erman's  Siberia,  II.  367. 

8  Chinese  Repos  ,  1842 ;  pp.  592-614.  *  Arbeiten  d.  JKuss.  Gesellsch.,  I.  385. 


1/4  ELEMENTS. 

enabled  them  to  absorb  literature,  social  organization,  edu- 
cation, and  religion  from  China  ;  so  that  their  Bochai  had 
become  a  "land  of  enlightenment"  before  the  conquest.1 
Three  times  these  Tunguse  tribes  have  founded  empires 
in  Upper  Asia,  whose  record  has  been  written  by  Chinese 
hands.2  The  Man-chu  language,  which  is  alphabetical,  is 
remarkable  for  simplicity  and  directness,  and  free  from  the 
ambiguities  of  expression  so  common  in  Chinese.3  The 
Tunguse,  of  which  it  is  a  dialect,  much  modified  by  the 
Chinese,  has  also  a  much  greater  organic  development  of 
grammatical  forms  than  the  latter  language.4  In  its  abun- 
dant literature  the  ethico-political  proverbs  are  especially 
attractive.5  During  their  dynastic  periods  of  two  centuries, 
the  Man-chus  have  given  China  the  completest  national 
organization  it  ever  possessed,  and  the  characters  of  their 
great  emperors,  Kang-hi  and  Kien-lung,  will  bear  compar- 
ison with  those  of  any  rulers  of  modern  time.  Separated 
by  national  prejudice  and  patriotic  instinct  from  the  con- 
quered race,  they  have  nevertheless,  to  a  certain  extent, 
coalesced  with  them  in  ties  of  blood. 

The  Thibetans  contribute  Hindu  elements,  —  a  reli- 
withthe  gi°us  temperament,  a  theological  literature,  a 
Thibet-  priestly  government,  the  thread  of  contemplation 
that  is  interwoven  with  this  rationalistic  and  utili- 
tarian warp,  and  appears  in  the  philosophies  of  Buddha  and 
Lao-tse.  They  have  furnished  an  important  part  of  the 
rich  ethical  wisdom  of  Chinese  literature.6  A  native  Thi- 
betan fetichism,  a  cultus  of  elements  and  spirits  opposed  to 
Buddhism,  and  called  the  "  Bon,"  7  or  Master,  corresponds 

1  Upgorski,  ibid.,  vol.  II.  2  Plath,  Gesch.  d.  Ostl.  Asiens. 

8  Chinese  Repos.,  June,  1844. 

4  Lucien  Adams,  Grammaire  de  la  Langue  Tungouse  (Paris,  1874). 

6  Sentences  Mantchoux  et  Mongols,  par  L.  Rochet  (Paris,    1875) ;  Wollheim's  Nation. 
Liter,  der  Volker  des  Orients,  II.  663.  «  Ibid  ,  p.  767. 

7  Csoma,  in  Journal  R.  A.  S.,  of  Bengal,  I.  124  ;  Hodgson,  ibid.,  XVIII.  396  ;  Schmidt's 
Sanang-setzen,  p.  351. 


ETHNIC    TYPE.  175 

with  the  popular  superstitions  of  China.  The  relations  of 
the  Chinese  with  Thibet  have  been  very  intimate  through 
frequent  conquests  and  incessant  travel,  so  that  much  in- 
termixture of  the  races  must  have  been  effected. 

Through  the  more  or  less  independent  aboriginal  tribes 
(Miau-tse),1  whose  origin  and  affinities  are  as  yet  but  whh  the 
little  known,  there  must  have  come  continual  infus-  Aborig- 
ion  of  a  natural  energy,  much  needed  by  the  artificial 
civilization  of  China.  These  tribes  hovered  over  it  as  the 
barbarians  over  the  later  Roman  empire,  though  without 
similar  resources  or  equal  result ;  and  their  perpetual  bor- 
der warfare  has  helped  to  counteract  the  enervation  that 
threatens  jt.  In  this  "  classic  land  of  freebooters  "  whole 
armies  have  been  swallowed  up,  and  ages  of  strife  spent 
with  but  little  conquest.  More  effective  means  of  fusion 
were  the  markets  and  fairs,  where  they  were  feasted  by 
the  national  officials.  They  were  not  without  organiza- 
tion. One  of  their  ancient  States  is  recorded  to  have 
contained  a  host  of  villages.2  Some  of  these  tribes  are 
supposed  to  be  in  possession  of  books,  written  in  the 
oldest  characters  and  carefully  kept  from  the  common 
eye.  They  show  respect  for  age,  similar  to  that  of  the 
Chinese  ;  but  while  many  industriously  till  the  soil,  others 
are  nomadic  and  predatory.  Their  customs  are  described 
as  cheerful  and  cordial,  and  their  fetichism  as  free  from 
grossness  or  barbarity.  Their  religion  centres  in  ances- 
tral rites  and  spirit  intercourse,  as  well  as  in  the  custom  of 
carefully  saving  up  the  bones  of  the  dead,  —  a  kind  of 
primitive  relic  worship  from  which  the  Chinese  have  mainly 
freed  themselves.  The  sexes  are  equal,  and  the  daughter 
inherits  her  father's  rank  whenever  the  male  children  are 
held  unfit  to  do  so  ;  while  in  some  of  the'  tribes  women 

1  Williams,  I.  37,  147;  Martin,  I.  80;   Chinese  Repos.,  March,  1845. 

*  St.  Denys,  from  Ma-tonan-lin,  Seances  du  Cong.  Internal.,  1873,  pp   360,  361. 


1/  ELEMENTS. 

seem  to  have  the  energy  to  maintain  a  higher  position  than 
men.1 

It  has  been  a  Chinese  fancy  that  their  own  ancient  rites 
were  preserved  among  these  barbarians,  on  whom  their 
ancestors  had  bestowed  language  and  writing ;  and  that,  if 
lost  in  China,  the  sacred  lore  could  be  recovered  of  the 
Miau-tse  races.  Confucius,  when  told  of  their  ignorance, 
said,  "  Where  the  wise  man  dwells,  ignorance  cannot  con- 
tinue." Thus  the  term  barbarian  was  not  used  of  these 
tribes  in  contempt,  though  many  of  them  are  described  in 
the  Li-ki  as  blackening  their  teeth,  wearing  long  unkempt 
hair,  painting  their  bodies,  and  dwelling  in  caves.  They 
were  familiarly  named  according  to  the  quarter  of  the 
heavens  where  they  bordered  on  the  Central  Kingdom, 
and  according  to  their  color,  as  red,  white,  black,  and  yel- 
low ; 2  and  described  as  "  baked  "  or  "  unbaked,"  according 
as  they  were,  or  were  not,  converted  to  Confucius.3  Tra- 
ditions show  an  intimate  connection  with  these  aborigines, 
and  their  gradual  civilization  by  the  patient  labors  of  the 
"  black-haired  families  of  Han." 

In  thus  recognizing  the  diverse  race-elements  combined 
„  .  in  the  Chinese  type,  I  do  not  assert  that  its  corre- 

Hypothe-  J  r 

sesasto  spondent  qualities  were  wholly  derived  from  the 
intermixture ;  nor  do  I  see  evidence  to  establish 
De  Rosny's  theory  of  a  connection  of  the  yellow  Asiatic 
race  with  Egypt ;  nor  the  likelihood  of  explaining  by  this, 
as  an  intermediate  family,  the  traits  of  the  white  races.4 
As  little  proof  is  given  us  of  the  conjecture  that  the  North- 
ern Chinese  were  anciently  influenced  by  the  invasion  of 
some  white  tribe.  We  do  not  even  know  that  the  "  hun- 
dred families  "  6  descended  from  the  Kwan-lun,6  or  that  they 

1  Lay,  chap.  xxxv.  *  Ma-touan-lin,  transl.  in  Atsuma  Gusa. 

s  Congr.  Internal ,  1873.  *  Conferences  at  Paris,  1869. 

5  The  Annals  explain  this  name,  by  Fohi's  having  regulated  marriage  relations  upon  such 
a  division,  which  has  ever  since  been  maintained.     De  Mailla,  I.  5. 
•  Biot  and  Kauffer. 


ETHNIC    TYPE.  177 

combined  in  one  the  Turanians  of  the  north  and  south  ; 
but  as  the  Hoang-ho  is  fabled  to  rise  "  in  a  hundred 
springs,  shining  like  stars,"  so  nearly  every  form  of  Asi- 
atic nationality,  except  the  most  westerly,  has  its  limited 
expression  in  this  strangely  uniform  Chinese  type.  Dif- 
ferences which  do  not  appear  in  the  written  language  come 
out  in  the  dialects  of  the  empire.  The  many  partially 
absorbed  elements  in  this  hospitable  mediative  civilization 
constitute  minor  distinctions  and  contrasts.  Pe-king  is 
described  as  in  this  respect  peculiarly  suited  for  researches 
into  the  anthropology  of  Asia,  so  complete  is  the  conflux 
of  typical  races.1  Here  is  a  floating  population  of  Mon- 
gols, Thibetans,  Turcomans,  and  Lamas,  of  every  tribe. 
Here  are  political  and  commercial  legations  from  most 
Asiatic  States  :  ten  thousand  Mussulmans,  dating  from  the 
ancient  times  of  Arab  traders  ;  five  hundred  Russians,  whose 
ancestors  were  transported  hither  in  1688,  and  who  have 
adopted  many  Chinese  customs  ;  Jews  also,  and  even  Zin- 
gari,  the  "  wandering  Jews "  of  India.  The  Man-chus  in 
Pe-king,  locally  apart  from  the  Chinese,  frequently  inter- 
marry with  them,  though  till  very  recently  a  law  forbade 
the  relation  ; 2  and  concubinage  has  been  a  fruitful  source 
of  fusion.  Monuments  in  various  parts  of  China  bear  wit- 
ness to  the  extent  of  race  intercourse  on  the  soil.  Bastian 
mentions  an  inscription,  in  six  languages,  on  the  wall  of 
a  mountain  pass.3  The  Mongol  rulers  in  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury poured  through  China  their  whole  vast  assemblage  of 
Central  Asiatic  tribes.  The  Hanlin,  during  this  cosmo- 
politan dynasty  (Yueri),  contained  members  from  all  im- 
portant races  of  the  East. 

1  Morache,  pp   72-75.  *  Notes  and  Queries,  September,  1868. 

»  Peking,  p.  355. 


12 


VI. 
RESOURCES. 


RESOURCES. 


T 


HE  land  has  as  composite  a  structure  as  the  people. 

With  its  eighteen  provinces,  and  its  Thibetan, 
Mongolic,  Turkic,  and  Manchurian  dependencies, 
the  Chinese  Empire  fills  a  circumference  of  twelve  thou- 
sand miles,  and  covers  an  area  of  five  million  square 
miles,  —  nearly  twice  the  extent  of  the  United  States, 
exclusive  of  the  lately  acquired  Russian  possessions.  It 
includes  the  whole  plateau  of  Central  Asia,  the  hive  of 
nomad  conquerors,  the  head-waters  of  all  the  great  rivers 
of  th6  continent,  and  the  ancestral  shrines  of  its  beliefs. 
A  natural  pride  in  this  vast  territory  is  expressed  in  the 
names,  "  Middle  Kingdom,"  "  Heavenly  Flowery  King- 
dom," "Earthly  Heaven;"  just  as  Pliny  describes  his 
Italy  as  "  chosen  by  the  gods  to  render  heaven  itself  more 
glorious,  and  become  the  mother  country  of  all  nations." 

Within  this  area  is  every  form  of  climate,  scenery,  and 
product.    A  colossal  mountain  girdle  ;  a  central  des-   Itsvari_ 
ert  with  moving  sands ;  an  immense  plain  densely  ous  eie- 
peopled  ;   endless    variety   of   shore-line,    archipel- 
ago, reef  ;   four-fifths  the   country  hilly,  and  mainly  fertile. 
Two  great  rivers,  as  opposite  as  Yn  and  Yang,  —  the  one 
passionate  and  destructive,  the  other  calm  and  creative,  — 
symbolize  the  national  character.     The  Hoang-ho,  without 
an  affluent,  unnavigable,  follows  its  wild  instincts  and  ca- 


1 82  ELEMENTS. 

prices,  often  breaking  all  bounds  in  disastrous  overflows,  like 
sudden  outbursts  of  Chinese  passion.  The  Yang-tze-kiang, 
of  "  Golden  Sands,"  —  most  serviceable  and  orderly  of  high- 
ways, most  readily  influenced  by  navigation,  opening  free 
access  to  the  interior,  and  leading  by  its  tributary  streams 
even  into  the  recesses  of  the  mountain  world,  joining  this 
heart  of  China  to  London  and  New  York,  fifty  miles 
broad  at  its  mouth,  by  its  tides  the  "  Son  of  the  Sea," 
lined  with  flourishing  cities  for  hundreds  of  miles,  —  is 
the  type  of  Chinese  industry,  of  all  mediative  and  produc- 
tive powers.1 

The  social  and  organizing  genius  of  the  people  finds  its 
symbol  in  an  unsurpassed  natural  drainage  and  intercom- 
munication by  water  ;  and  even  their  superstition  has  free 
play  in  the  solitude  of  wide-reaching  deserts,  where  spirits 
are  heard  whispering  or  calling  from  afar,  and  lure  the 
traveller  from  his  way.2 

The  climate  varies  from  the  extremes  of  northern  and 
southern,  through  alternations  of  the  Pacific  Coast 
and  strong  winds  of  the  plains,  to  the  equability  of 
the  hill  country  and  the  dryness  of  Thibet.  The  soil  a'ffords 
immense  supplies  of  salt,  marble,  sulphur,  and  coal,  and 
abundance  of  metallic  treasures.  The  wonderful  diversity 
of  local  scenery,  the  exquisite  beauty  of  the  cultivated 
plains  and  river  courses,  verdant  terraces  mounting  to  the 
hill-tops  or  crowned  with  acres  of  white  camelia,  wide  ex- 
panses of  domestic  comfort  and  rural  prosperity,  endless 
variety  of  trees  and  flowering  shrubs,  seas  %of  vegetation 
sweeping  up  into  recesses  of  majestic  mountains,  —  all  this 
would  hardly  be  credible  had  it  not  its  vouchers  in  de- 
scriptions by  such  eye-witnesses  as  Williams  and  Davis, 
Fortune  and  Fleming,  Montfort  and  Barrow. 

1  Magaillans  voyaged  through  China  from  Pe-king  to  Macao,  in  1656,  for  six  hundred 
leagues,  with  but  a  single  day's  journey  on  land  ;  and   all  along  the  Kiang  passed  trains  of 
boats  "  that  would  make  bridges  it  would  take  days  to  cross." 

2  Marco  Polo,  I.  xxxvi. 


Climate. 


RESOURCES.  183 

The  same  diversity  of  character  is  to  be  noted  in  the 
great  cities  of  China.  Pe-king,  the  city  of  Kublai, 

'   The  cities. 

is  a  crowded  Tartar  camp,  in  the  whirling  sands 
of  the  steppe,  with  selenite  water,  heaps  of  offal,  decayed 
hospitals,  and  army  of  beggars  licensed  to  pillage  and 
mob  :  yet  also  a  confluence  of  races  around  an  ideal  of 
universal  sway ;  a  vast  religious  symbolism  crystallized  in 
political  forms  ;  a  huge  fortress,  with  walls  fifty  feet  high 
and  equally  broad,  and  a  circumference  of  twenty  miles  ; 
with  such  monuments  of  splendor  as  its  colossal  Temple  of 
Heaven,  its  watch-tower  with  the  Drum  of  Equal  Justice, 
its  mountain  of  stone  coal,  its  enormous  Gate  of  Lions, 
and  the  ruins  of  the  most  superb  of  summer  palaces,  sad 
monument  of  Christian  revenge. 

Nan-king  is  the  city  of  arts  and  letters,  the  Florence  of 
China,  "  where  six  kingdoms  rose  and  fell ; "  girded  with 
its  seven  leagues  of  wall,  entered  by  high  arched  gates, 
and  crossed  by  immense  parallel  streets ;  its  tombs  of 
kings,  reached  by  avenues  of  statues  ;  its  soil  thick  with 
dtbris  of  old  civilizations  ;  its  Tartar  city  apart  from  the 
native  population,  and,  though  now  empty,  not  touched  by 
them,  because  their  patriotic  hope  has  reserved  it  to  re- 
ceive, by  and  by,  the  returning  glories  of  the  Ming;  twenty 
years  ago  a  brilliant  city  of  half  a  million  inhabitants,  then 
the  stronghold  of  the  Tai-ping  rebellion,  at  last  a  melan- 
choly ruin,  yet  still  a  centre  of  hopes  for  letters  and  arts. 

Hang-chau,  with  its  prodigious  population,  busy  indus- 
tries, wealthy  stores,  and  well-paved  streets,  is  the  Kin- 
sai  of  Marco  Polo,  his  "  celestial  city,  the  grandest  and 
most  beautiful  in  the  world;"  whose  vast  extent,  innu- 
merable bridges,  stately  squares,  and  splendid  palaces,  as 
reported  by  this  old  traveller,1  helped  to  get  him  the  nick- 

1  B.  II.,  LXVIII.  Navarrete  also  describes  it  as  a  day's  journey  through  for  a  sedan, 
from  suburb  to  suburb,  having  broad,  stone-pawd  streets  and  arches,  as  curiously  wrought  as 
any  at  Rome. 


184  ELEMENTS. 

name  of  Messer  Millione  with  the  incredulous  merchants  of 
Venice.  Its  environs  are  still  a  paradise,  amidst  which 
rises,  fourteen  stories  high,  the  Tower  of  Thundering 
Winds. 

Kai-fung  is  the  old  city  of  the  legendary  Fo-hi,  and  the 
cradle  of  the  monarchy,  the  type  of  its  vicissitudes  and  its 
permanence, —  fifteen  times  inundated,  eleven  times  be- 
seiged.  Its  great  dike  against  the  dangerous  Hoang-ho 
was  pierced  by  a  patriotic  general,  to  save  it  from  the  in- 
vading Man-chus,  at  a  fearful  sacrifice  of  life, 

Ning-po  boasts  its  Tower,  four  hundred  years  old,  and  a 
hundred  and  sixty  feet  high  ;  and  Yao-chau  blazes,  with  its 
five  hundred  porcelain  furnaces,  night  and  day. 

Su-chau-fu  was,  before  the  civil  wars,  the  metropolis  of 
industry,  and  common  centre  of  the  lines  of  canal,  both 
great  and  small  ;  famous  for  the  pacific  spirit  of  its  thriv- 
ing traders,  rivalling  Nan-king  in  a  national  admiration, 
which  "  holds  nothing  to  be  beautiful,  graceful,  or  elegant 
but  what  comes  from  one  or  the  other  of  these  cities." 
It  was  the  "  Chinese  Capua."  "  In  heaven  Paradise,  on 
earth  Su-chau." 

In  one  vast  plain,  at  the  junction  of  the  Han  with  the 
Yang-tsz,  stand  side  by  side  three  great  cities,  surrounded 
by  waters  ;  a  Chinese  inland  Venice,  crowded  with  wealth 
and  population.  Lecomte  (seventeenth  century),  who  trav- 
elled over  China  with  eyes  wide  open,  tells  of  seven  or 
eight  cities  as  large  at  least  as  Paris  then  was  ;  of  eighty 
equal  to  Lyons,  and  more  than  a  thousand  of  lower  grade, 
besides  innumerable  villages. 

Of  the  great  ports  which   sprinkle   the   immense   coast 

line  we  may  note  Canton,  perhaps  the  finest  in  the 

world,  whose  beautiful  river  archipelago,  surrounded 

by  an  almost  tropical  wealth  of  woods  alternating  with  rich 

gardens  and  villas,  reaches  up  towards  the  far  mountains 

one  way,  and  down  to  its  bright  city  of  painted  boats  and 


RESOURCES.  185 

floating  flower-gardens  the  other  way  ;  Shang-hai,  gate  of 
the  Empire,  and  its  fur-trade  station,  unrivalled  for  in- 
ternal communications,  closely  connected  with  the  great 
productive  centre  Su-chau-fu,  and  destined,  as  Fortune 
thinks,  to  be  the  "  port  of  the  future  East  ;"  ancf  Hong- 
kong, traditional  depot  of  foreign  trade. 

There  are  islands  of  peculiar  value  to  China,  —  Tchu- 
san,  her   Holy  Isle,  whose  rocks  are  covered   with 
the    name    of  Amida    Buddha,  and  with  convents  ™*nds 
and   temples   of  his  faith ;  and  Formosa,  her  gran- 
ary, as  Sicily  to  Rome,  on  whose  rice  crop  depend  the  lives 
of  millions,  while  it  is  still  partially  in  the  hands  of  abo- 
rigines, and  has  but  recently  been  wrested  from  bands  of 
pirates  and  rebels,  —  at  once  a  nurse  of  industry  and  a  nest 
of  strife. 

The  most  careful  estimates  of  population  correspond  with 
the  Chinese  census  of  1812.  This  made  it  three 

The  popu- 

hundred  and  sixty-two  millions,  which,  at  the  usual  lation> 
rate  of  increase,  must  now  be  raised  to  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  millions.  The  numbers  involve  a  ratio  of 
two  hundred  and  sixty-eight  persons  to  the  square  mile,  or 
ten  per  cent,  more  than  that  of  England  ;  and  the  density 
of  the  Eastern  provinces,  four  hundred  and  fifty-eight  to 
the  square  mile,  is  greater  than  that  of  any  other  known 
community.  The  organizing  genius  of  the  Man-chus  has 
given  a  value  to  their  census  returns  beyond  most  that 
have  preceded  them,  —  placing  every  street,  and  even 
house,  under  official  charge,  and  requiring  every  family  to 
keep  its  register  of  members.1 

In  all  times  the  numbering  of  the  people  has  been  held 
a  sacred  duty  ;  but  no  effort  could  secure  accurate  statis- 
tics from  such  elements  of  uncertainty  as  the  frequent 
civil  wars,  and  the  vast  extent  of  vagrancy  and  transloca- 
tion  that  attended  them  ;  the  sudden  fluctuations  in  revo- 

i  Williams  I.  216,  227. 


1 86  ELEMENTS. 

lutionary  periods,  amounting  sometimes  to  loss  of  half  the 
population  in  half  a  century  ;  treachery  of  officials  ;  and 
the  habit  of  numbering  by  families  instead  of  individuals, 
—  different  numbers  being  counted  as  a  family  at  different 
periods.1 

Biot  has  faith  enough  in  .Ma-touan-lin's  traditions  to  put 
the  population,  in  the  old  wonder-days  of  Yao  and  Shun, 
at  thirteen  millions  (!) ;  which  is  like  believing  in  the  ages 
of  the  patriarchs  as  given  in  Hebrew  tradition.  The  "  ten 
thousand  vassal  chiefs  "  of  their  great  monarchy  of  dream- 
land vanish  in  proportion  as  we  approach  historic  times. 

The  immense  fertility  of  this  human  seed  requires  all 
its  pres  the  cultivable  sou1  f°r  its  support.  An  empire  of 
sure  on  four  hundred  millions,  without  an  acre  laid  to 
the  land.  grass  j  Their  poorer  soil-is  full  of  graves,  and  the 
insatiable  demand  of  death  for  the  spaces  beneath  their 
feet  is  met  by  removing  the  ashes  from  older  coffins  into 
urns,  and  replacing  them  with  the  newly  dead.  Man  has 
converted  the  very  earth  into  his  doings  and  his  dust,  till 
even  this  supply  fails  ;  and  the  Malthusian  therapeutics  of 
war  and  famine  are  confuted  on  their  own  ground,  where 
they  have  had  full  play.  The  "  strife  for  survival  "  in  these 
crowded  cities  has  been  an  application  of  Darwinism  on 
the  largest  human  scale  ;  but  the  "  natural  selection  "  has 
not  resulted  in  that  adaptation  of  man  to  outward  con- 
ditions required  by  the  theory,  so  much  as  in  the  conver- 
sion of  Nature  itself  into  the  strange  likeness  of  a  peculiar 
race  of  men. 

The  human  causes  of  this  prodigious  increase  of  popu- 
lation are  manifold.  Honor  to  agriculture,  and 
taxation  according  on  the  whole  with  values,  have 
made  the  cultivator  feel  at  his  ease.  Emperors 
have  exhorted  to  frugality.  A  long  peace  from  the  begin- 

1  SacharofPs  careful  review  of  the  population  of  China  in  A  rbeiten  d.  Russisch.  Gesattdsch. 
II.  pp.  192,  193  ;  also  Biot  in  Journ.  Asiat.  1836. 


RESOURCES.  ig/ 

ning  of  the  eighteenth  century  preserved  the  vital  forces  of 
the  country.  The  universality  of  marriage  ;  the  custom  of 
betrothing  in  childhood  ;  laws  and  manners  on  the  whole  fa- 
voring monogamy  ;  the  requirement  that  even  female  slaves 
shall  be  provided  with  husbands,  and  shall  not  be  separated 
from  them  ;  mutual-aid  societies  ;  laws  discouraging  emi- 
gration, especially  of  females  ;  the  comparative  retirement 
of  wives  during  critical  periods,  and  the  constant  adoption 
of  homeless  children,  —  all  have  contributed  to  produce  a 
high  rate  of  increase.  And  it  should  be  noted  that  most 
of  these  laws  and  customs  form  parts  of  a  deliberate  system 
of  incentives  to  secure  an  abounding  posterity,  which  is 
inherent  in  Oriental  life,  and  is  the  reflex  of  its  patriarchal 
traditions. 

On  the  other  hand,  China  has  been  subject  to  special 
drawbacks  to  the  growth  of  population.  Besides  wars  and 
far  expeditions  to  the  bordering  wastes,  which  in  almost  all 
ages  have  swept  off  great  multitudes,  ignorance  of  physi- 
ology has  made  infectious  diseases  prevalent  and  destruc- 
tive. The  estimate  that  forty  millions  have  perished  during 
the  last  eighteen  years  by  war,  pestilence,  and  famine  must 
be  excessive,  and  serves  only  to  indicate  the  great  scale 
upon  which  depopulation  from  these  causes  is  admitted  to 
be  going  on  in  the  empire,  in  an  age  which  some  have 
imagined  to  be  the  period  of  its  final  decay.1  Opium  has 
slain  its  hosts.  Suicide  has  often,  in  times  of  public  ca- 
lamity, become  a  mania,  and  probably  on  a  scale  unprece- 
dented in  human  history.  From  many  great  cities,  if  we 
may  judge  from  their  actual  tracts  of  ruin,  emigration  must 
have  been  very  extensive,  and  much  of  it  to  far  coun- 
tries. The  laws  against  expatriation  are  easily  evaded. 
The  inhabitants  of  the  coast  are  bold,  lawless,  and  enter- 
prising ;  especially  in  Fo-kien,  whence  most  of  the  movement 
of  emigration  proceeds.  The  world  beyond  sea  beckons 
these  insatiate  work-seekers  to  India,  California,  Luzon,  the 

1  Knowlton  in  Notes  and  Queries,  Aug.,  i86S. 


1 88  ELEMENTS. 

Pacific  islands,  especially  to  Australia,  and  to  service  in 
merchant  ships.  Yet  over-population  must  add  its  stimulus 
to  effect  the  sundering  of  local  ties  which  are  probably 
stronger  than  those  of  any  other  people.  And  the  vast 
population  of  China  was  in  fact  never  so  impressive  a 
phenomenon  as  it  is  to-day. 

What  enormous  resources  have  repaid  these  swarms  of 
laborers,  in  whom  labor  is  not  only  an  organic  in- 
stinct>  but  tne  substance  of  religion  !  Mark  what 
force  of  civility  is  shown  in  the  fact  that  this  con- 
centrated mass-power  has  not  hurled  its  Mongolic  passion 
for  universal  sway  upon  the  minor  races  'of  the  continent ! 
What  other  people  has  ever  attained  such  predominance  in 
material  force  without  making  itself  a  terror  to  weaker 
nations,  a  conqueror  by  physical  and  destructive  means  ? 
China  has  preferred  to  teach  labor  and  letters  ;  to  build 
-empires,  to  convert  its  very  conquerors  to  peaceful  enter- 
prise. Is  it  from  inherent  want  of  power  to  use  the  strong 
hand  ?  If  Christendom  pursues  its  past  methods,  it  will 
perhaps  find  that  it  has  chosen  for  itself  the  mission  of 
endowing  this  patient,  plodding  giant  with  a  new  and  fatal 
fire.  What  armies  he  could  organize,  what  fleets  build  and 
man,  what  services  command  from  European  science  in 
the  arts  of  war!  On  these  endless  coasts,  whose  hardy 
tribes  are  amphibious,  and  divided  between  piracy  and' 
traffic;  on  these  mighty  rivers  and  these  inland  seas, — 
what  materials  for  the  rapid  growth  of  an  inexhaustible  na- 
val power !  It  was  Napoleon  who  warned  England  against 
her  Eastern  policy.  "  The  worst  thing  you  have  done  is 
to  go  to  war  with  an  immense  empire  like  China.  These 
people  will  imitate  you,  build  fleets,  arm  them,  and  in  time 
defeat  you."  Napoleon's  point  of  view  was  that  of  the  di- 
plomatist and  soldier.  The  Religion  of  Humanity  finds  in 
these  indubitable  relations  of  Christianity  to  Heathenism 
fresh  argument  for  insisting  on  its  own  new  and  nobler 
faith,  beyond  them  both. 


STRUCTURES. 


I. 


EDUCATION. 


EDUCATION. 


the  three  traits  we  have  mentioned  as  characteristic 
of  the  Chinese  muscular  type  of  mind,  the  first  —  its 
plodding  persistence  - — has  made  its  record  in  the  wonderful 
industrial  development  already  described.  The  second  —  a 
dead-level  uniformity  —  is  now  to  be  traced  through  those 
systems  of  popular  education  and  that  democratic  tempera- 
ment, by  which  it  also  has  justified  its  existence. 

As  was  said  of  Chinese  industry,  so  we  may  say  of  this 
second  trait,  that  its  elements  of  universality,  and  its  thor- 
oughly organic  and  earnest  quality  render  it  a  positive 
religions  fact,  a  form  of  the  concrete  national  ideal. 

"  Most  beneficent,"  says  the  Koran,  "  is  the  Lord,  who 
hath  taught  the  use  of  the  pen."  1  Christianity,  like  Islam- 
ism  and  Judaism,  worships  a  Book.  China  adores 
that  which  constitutes  all  books  ;  not  a  written 
Word,  but  writing  itself :  Thought  in  the  most 
concrete,  fixed,  visible  form.  Writing,  for  her,  springs 
straight  from  the  elements  and  forms  of  Nature,  and  rep- 
resents man's  unity  with  natural  order  ;  it  is  the  first  reve- 
lation, —  on  the  sands,  on  the  tortoise  and  the  river-horse, 
in  the  tracks  of  birds,  in  the  starry  heavens,  —  to  Fo-hi, 
primitive  teacher  of  mankind.  This  reverence  for  the 
familiar  and  constant  instrument  of  thought  forbids  the 

i  Sura,  XCVI.  (Rodwell's  Tr.) 


STRUCTURES. 

exclusive  authority  of  any  one  Book :  it  is  a  germ  of 
Universal  Religion  ;  the  cultus  of  a  permanent,  inevitable 
process  of  the  natural  method  of  mind. 

China  is  a  vast  open  volume.  Every  thing  is  stamped 
with  the  written  words  of  man.  Walls,  doors,  pilasters,  are 
but  the  bearers  of  felicitous  mottoes,  apothegms,  original  or 
proverbial.  Apartments  are  covered  by  "  flowery  scrolls  " 
hung  in  pairs,  artistically  devised  to  express  in  elegant 
sentences,  —  ethical,  amatory,  dramatic,  enigmatic,  —  con- 
trasted or  corresponding  images  of  feeling.  Temples  are 
books  of  wise  sayings,  oracular  responses,  divine  names, 
which  spill  over  on  the  surrounding  rocks.  Lanterns  are 
scribbled  ;  dresses  are  not  only  worn,  but  read.  A  good 
sentence  well  pencilled  is  the  most  dainty  of  gifts  ;  a  shop 
front  is  a  public  gratuity  of  scribbled  puffs  and  cards  of 
invitation  ;  a  hduse-door  sighs  in  the  name  of  its  owner, 
"  May  I  be  so  learned  as  to  hide  ten  thousand  volumes 
in  my  mind,"  or  announces  that  "  by  literature  the  people 
become  great." 

As  the  Hebrew  would  not  tread  on  paper,  lest  the  name 
of  Jehovah  might  be  written  on  it,  so  for  our  Chinaman 
all  written  words  are  sacred ;  and  he  has  a  double  motive 
for  gathering  up  every  morsel  of  paper :  first,  for  the  sake 
of  economy,  to  recast  it  into  new  supplies  of  a  material  in 
such  unlimited  demand  ;  and,  second,  for  the  sake  of  the 
characters,  of  whatever  purport,  that  may  chance  to  be 
inscribed  on  it.  European  treatment  of  this  god  amazes 
him.  "  Be  respectful  to  written  paper,"  say  the  urns  placed 
by  waysides  for  its  reception. 

Appliances  for  writing  have  been  pursued  by  the  Chinese 
as  other  races  multiply  and  perfect  the  materials  of  trade 
or  war.1  Tablets  made  of  every  available  substance,  bam- 
boo, metal,  bark,  pith,  flax,  silk,  straw  ;  the  use  of  style, 

1  Duhalde,  Vol.  II. 


EDUCATION. 


193 


pencil,  brush  ;  typography  invented  fifteen  hundred  years 
ago ;  elaborate  researches  into  the  history  of  the  art  of 
making  ink  ;  a  great  number  and  variety  of  styles  in  form- 
ing the  written  characters  ; l  a  marvellous  adroitness  in  ex- 
ecuting the  strokes  of  which  they  are  composed  by  rules 
of  calligraphy  which  they  honor  with  the  name  of  "  ever- 
lasting ; "  2  minute  inquiries  into  the  theory,  structure,  and 
uses  of  written  signs,  —  all  bear  witness  to  the  happy  ear- 
nestness of  this  service  of  recorded  mind.  Like  the  Norse 
runes,  these  mystic  characters  are  called  "  eyes  of  the 
wise  ; "  and  he  who  does  not  respect  them  shall  be  born 
blind  hereafter.3  Here  their  routine-bound  habit  escape^ 
into  the  geniality  and  individuality  of  fine  art.  Of  all  feti- 
chism,  this  is  surely  the  most  promising.  How  it  bridges 
over  the  ages  of  human  progress  in  the  evolution  of  speech, 
the  conservative  loyalty  of  the  East  inviting  the  diffusive 
science  of  the  West !  Even  in  its  Oriental  phase  we  shall 
see  it  seizing,  as  by  a  divine  instinct  of  logical  sequence, 
the  great  idea  of  universal  education.  By  her  invention  of 
printing,  and -of  good  material  for  diffusing  it,  China  out- 
stripped the  Roman  world, — which  was  reduced  to  the  use 
of  palimpsests,  and  the  consequent  ruin  of  much  of  its 
own  work. 

Every  thing  is  recorded,  hastening  to  the  written  sign  as 
to  its  final  purpose.     The  whole  thirteen  books  of 
the  Classics  are  inscribed  on  stone  tables  of  mas-  Ktetuure 
sive  granite  at  Pe-king.     At  Singapore  there  is  a 
similar  stone  library.4     Before  a  temple  in  the  capital  is 
a  "  Forest  of  Tablets,"  containing  the  list  of  all  who  have 
attained  the  highest    doctorate,  —  sixty   thousand  names 
in  all.5 

The  "Public  Annals"   (Shi-lu),    secret  records   of    the 
doings   of  each  emperor   and   his   administrative   boards, 

1  Wylie,  p.  117.  2  Lay's  Chinese  as  they  Are,  ch.  xx.  8  Doolittle,  II.  168. 

*  Chinese  Recorder,  Sept.,  1871,  p.  88.  6  Ibid.  p.  87. 

13 


194  STRUCTURES. 

written  out  by  official  hands  day  by  day,  are  by  law  depos- 
ited and  kept  inviolate  till  the  end  of  the  reign  ;  at  which 
time  they  are  brought  forth,  —  like  the  Judgment-Day 
Books  opened  in  the  Egyptian,  Jewish,  Mahommedan,  and 
Christian  religions,  —  to  decide  the  historical  destiny  of 
the  past  ruler,  and  for  warning  or  example  to  the  new 
one.1 

Every  three  months  the  name  of  every  functionary  is 
recorded  in  the  official  almanac,  with  the  designation  of 
his  place  and  work.  Of  the  annual  calendar  of  works  and 
days,  of  astronomical,  phases  and  modes  of  divination, 
more  copies  are  printed  and  sold  than  of  any  Bible  in  the 
world. 

The  accumulation  of  books  in  libraries  is,  of  course, 
prodigious.  Kien-lung's  select  classical  collection  alone 
consisted  of  ten  thousand  five  hundred  works,  and  its  cata- 
logue gives  fourteen  hundred  and  fifty  commentaries  on 
the  Yking,  and  three  hundred  and  three  encyclopaedias. 
The  "  Catalogue  of  the  Four  Libraries  "  is  in  one  hundred 
and  twelve  octavo  volumes,  of  three  hundred  pages  each, 
and  contains  an  account  of  twenty  thousand  works.  The 
provincial  topographies  are  exhaustive ;  one  of  them  fills 
one  hundred  and  eighty-two  volumes.  A  single  modern 
collection  of  Chinese  books  in  possession  of  the  East  India 
Society  can  show  two  hundred  volumes  of  plays.  Five 
great  catastrophes  by  fire  have  done  nothing  towards  de- 
stroying the  enormous  treasures  of  a  literary  industry  of 
three  thousand  years.  It  is  Chinese  immortality,  this 
phoenix  of  letters.  It  is  the  analogue  of  Western  science, 
as  entire  persistence  of  force.  The  "  Collections  of  Re- 
prints," as  described  and  in  part  analyzed  by  Wylie,  surpass 
all  other  records  of  literary  conservation  in  human  history. 
Separate  anthologies  embrace  more  than  a  thousand  au- 
thors. Chinese  encyclopaedias  are  to  ours,  for  size  at  least, 

1  De  Mas,  p.  257. 


EDUCATION.  195 

as  plesiosaurs  to  lizards.  One  of  them  contains  extracts 
from  seventeen  hundred  works,  and  fills  fifteen  hundred 
volumes.  The  Ming  emperors  set,  at  one  time,  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  compilers  at  work  on  these  collections  ;  at 
another  twenty-two  hundred ;  and  then  the  vast  result  was 
destroyed  by  fire.  New  commissions  and  new  ordeals  of 
flame  succeeded  ;  till  at  last  a  "  Liber  redivivus  "  stands  in 
four  hundred  and  fifty  books,  comprehending  more  mate- 
rial than  ever.  Kang-hi  leaves  Solomon  in  the  distance. 
He  wrote  one  hundred  and  seventy-six  books  of  Literary 
Recreations,  and  two  hundred  and  eighty-nine  poems. 
Kien-lung  compiled  a  body  of  thirty-four  thousand  poems 
from  works  produced  during  his  own  reign.  The  quality 
of  all  this  is  not  for  us  at  present  to  estimate ;  but  we  may 
note  the  strong  utilitarian  bias  of  the  imperial  House  of 
T'sing.  Kang-hi  kept  eighty  scholars  at  work  for  seven 
years  on  a  dictionary  of  those  prolific  elements  of  litera- 
ture, the  written  signs,  and  wrote  an  excellent  preface  to 
this  new  classic. 

The  Chinese  are  the  most  patient  and  thorough  bibliog- 
raphers in  the  world.  There  are  public  libraries  in  every 
provincial  capital,  and  nearly  three  hundred  celebrated 
ones.  Circulating  libraries,  new  in  the  West,  are  in  the 
East  immemorial.  Thousands  of  light  publications  issue 
continually  from  the  press.  Standard  works  of  history, 
law,  and  letters  are  published  by  the  Han-lin  (Royal  Acad- 
emy), and  distributed  to  the  learned  world,  —  which  in 
China  consists  of  at  least  two  millions  of  scholars.1 

In  no  other  nation  has  such  honor  been  rendered  to  lit- 
erature and  to  literary  men.  Academies  are  at  the 

Honors  to 

summit  of  the  State,  and  public  instruction  is  its  culture. 
first  requirement.     The  number  of  colleges  of  the 
first  and  second  orders  is  more  than  two  thousand.     Revo- 
lutions turn  on  the  destruction  of  books.     All  this  enthu- 

1  Medhurst. 


196  STRUCTURES. 

siasm  and  faith  deserve  no  less  than  to  be  called  a  Relig- 
ion. A  nation  of  four  hundred  millions  falls  at  the  feet  of 
a  philosopher,  and  burns  incense  to  the  tablets  of  scholars. 
An  old  description  of  the  Chinese  in  Hakluyt1  says  that 
"  their  literature  is  in  a  manner  infinite."  The  Chinese  leg- 
endary prophet  is  a  resolved  youth,  who  fastens  his  hair  to 
the  ceiling  when  he  studies  ;  or  reads  by  the  light  of  glow- 
worms ;  or  puts  sticks  for  a  pillow,  to  keep  off  sleep  ;  or 
says,  "  I  will  cease  from  literature  when  I  have  made  a  hole 
in  this  iron  inkstand  with  grinding  my  ink."  Mencius's 
mother  cut  the  web  she  was  weaving,  to  show  him  the  folly 
and  mischief  of  giving  up  his  studies.  This  more  prosaic 
passion  answers,  in  the  son  of  Han,  to  the  spirit  of  Hebrew 
seers,  who  smashed  tiles  to  foreshow  the  wrath  of  Jehovah, 
or  ate  little  books  for  a  sign  that  what  is  sweet  in  the 
mouth  shall  be  bitter  in  the  stomach.  Martyrs  to  litera- 
ture in  China  have  numbered  hundreds  to  one  as  compared 
with  those  whose  blood  has  sealed  the  Hebrew  faith.  The 
peaceful  examinations  in  every  great  city  of  the  Middle 
Kingdom  rouse  an  ambition  whose  toils  and  disappoint- 
ments more  frequently  result  in  the  sacrifice  of  human  life, 
than  the  exciting  appeals  or  denunciations  of  Jehovism.  In 
every  revolution,  loyalty  to  the  rights  and  duties  of  the  lit- 
erary class  has  issued  in  the  suicide,  banishment,  or  mas- 
sacre of  large  numbers.  The  soul  of  Chinese  patriotism 
and  piety  is  identified  with  the  claims  of  culture,  —  in  the 
name  of  its  divine  origin,  its  ethical  purity,  and  its  univer- 
sal spirit  of  equality  and  diffusion,  —  to  rule  the  State. 
Learning  takes  precedence  even  of.  age.  The  literary  per- 
son, ever  so  young,  is  a  "venerable  father;"  like  the  Hin- 
du Brahman,  but  with  a  widely  different  social  meaning. 
Learning  in  China  is  more  than  wealth.  There  are  no 
property  entails,  but  the  descendants  of  great  scholars  are 
ennobled. 

i  ii.  564. 


EDUCATION. 


197 


So  spontaneous  is  this  Religion  of  Culture  that  its  ele- 
mentary work  is  not  subjected  to  an  organic  rule 

J  This  relig- 

or  system,  but  is  left,  safely  enough,  to  the  force  of  ionspoma- 
public  sentiment,  the  incentives  of  social  and   po-   neous  and 

earnest. 

litical  aspiration.  "  A  youth,"  says  Confucius,  "  is 
to  be  regarded  with  respect.  How  do  we  know  that  his 
future  may  not  be  equal  to  our  present  ?"  1  This  instinctive 
recognition  of  the  right  of  education  even  supplies  the 
place  of  our  colleges  and  universities,  with  its  enthusiastic 
competitive  examinations.  While  there  is  not,  properly 
speaking,  any  public-school  system  in  China,  yet  proba- 
bly a  larger  proportion  of  the  population  have  acquired 
those  elements  of  knowledge  which  fit  them  for  pursuing 
the  further  disciplines  requisite  for  position  and  distinc- 
tion, than  in  any  other  nation  in  the  modern  world,  except 
perhaps  Switzerland  and  Prussia. 

A  groundwork  for  universal  education  is  secured  by  the 
public  reading  of  Kang-hi's  "  Sacred  Edicts  "  every 
half-month  in  the  towns  ;  to  which  are  added  the 
comments  of  the  Emperor,  Yung-Ching.  These 
sixteen  Shing-yu  are  apothegms  of  public  and  private 
duty  covering  the  whole  ground  of  Chinese  ethics,  and 
the  comments  expand  them  into  applications  historical  and 
social.  The  custom  is  as  old  as  Chinese  traditions  run.2 
This  national  rubric,  however,  not  being  enforced  as  of  su- 
pernatural authority,  its  ethical  excellence  can  appeal  far 
more  directly  to  the  free  conscience  than  the  stated  read- 
ing even  of  the  Decalogue  or  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  in 
Jewish  and  Christian  schools.  In  fact,  while  sufficiently 
circulated  by  political  regulation  to  keep  good  ethical  prin- 
ciples and  public  interest  before  the  popular  mind,  this  offi- 
cial proclamation  of  virtues  is  open  to  much  laxity  in  its 
stated  performance  from  the  absence  of  ecclesiastical  sanc- 


1  Lunyu,  IX.  22. 

1  Biot's  Tcheou-li;   and  Plath,  July,  1868. 


I98  STRUCTURES. 

tions,  —  a  freedom  which  may  help  to  counteract  the  dead- 
ening effect  of  its  pedagogy  and  routine. 

The  educational  impulse,  thus  encouraged,  expresses  it- 
se^  ^n  t^le  sma^  private  schools  which  are  every- 
where supported  by  the  people,  —  day-schools  in 
the  poorest  country  towns,  and  evening  schools  for  mechan- 
ics in  the  cities,1  —  the  teachers  being  usually  graduates  of 
higher  schools,  who  have  not  been  able  to  secure  official 
posts.  It  is  probably  the  great  difference  between  the 
numbers  of  written  characters  learned  by  different  classes 
and  at  the  different  schools,  that  leads  to  the  widely-vary- 
ing estimates,  now  before  us,  of  the  number  of  persons  in 
the  Empire  who  can  be  said  to  "  read  and  write."  Two 
facts  are  beyond  question.  All  classes  are  admitted  to 
the  schools  without  distinction,2  and  the  price  of  tuition 
is  very  low,  —  parents  in  fact  paying  according  to  their 
means.  Persons  of  almost  every  class  make  efforts  to  send 
their  children  to  school3  "  All  parents,"  says  Brine,  "  deem 
placing  their  sons  at  school  a  matter  of  first  importance  ; 
and  I  have  seen  agricultural  laborers  and  boatmen  save  as 
much  as  possible  from  their  small  earnings  from  the  day  of 
marriage,  and  look  forward  to  the  time  when  the  boy  could 
be  sent  to  pick  up  the  small  amount  of  learning  so  requi- 
site for  his  future  success  in  life."  4  "  Every  one,"  says  De 
Mas,  "  reads  the  bulletins  on  the  walls  :  the  poor  can  read 
what  characters  belong  to  their  occupations.  Often  in 
the  British  Consulate,  when  British  sailors  have  to  make 
their  mark,  Chinese  will  be  able  to  write  and  sign  their 
depositions."  5 

This  open  opportunity  applies  only  to  the  elementary 
schools,  since  the  expenses  of  competitive  examinations 
must  shut  out  large  numbers  from  the  higher  grades.  The 

1  Williams,  I.  427;  Fleming,  p.  150.  2  Chinese  Repos.,  July,  1835,  P-  "8. 

3  Nevius,  p.  62.  4    Tai-ping  KebelL,  p.  13. 

c  De  Mas,  I.  255.  Girard,  II.  26;  Lockhart,  Medical  Missionary  in  Ckina,  p.  6. 
London,  1861. 


EDUCATION.  199 

masses  are  taught  those  written  characters  mainly  which 
represent  ideas  and  objects  of  ordinary  use  ;  but  the  num- 
ber of  years  spent  at  school  is  naturally  determined  by  the 
resources  of  the  parent.  A  very  large  proportion  of  the 
schools  at  least  direct  the  mind  to  the  classics  and  the  his- 
tories, and  teach  the  composition  of  sentences.  The  es- 
sentials of  practical  business  are  learned  in  offices  and 
shops,  to  which  the  young  people  are  transferred  at  an 
early  age. 

Their  entrance  to  the  gates  of  wisdom  would  seem  to  be 
no  path  of  roses.  School  hours  are  from  six  A.M.  to  five 
P.M.,  with  an  hour  or  two  of  recess,  and  without  vacation 
except  at  New  Year,  and  a  few  holidays.  No  outward 
comforts  commend  the  dull  routines  ;  and  the  masters 
being  usually  disappointed  men  are  not  likely  to  prove 
encouraging  guides. 

The  nature  of  the  language  requires  that  primary  edu- 
cation should  consist  mainly  in  committing:  char- 
Nature  of 
acters  to  memory.     Sounds  and  forms  must  come   education. 

first,  and  without  regard  to  meaning.  These  char-  JVIemor- 
acters  are  not  the  alphabet  of  Chinese  literature, 
—  they  are  the  substance  of  it :  every  one  means  a  sen- 
tence, an  idea,  a  concrete  fact.  Words  are  studied,  not  in 
their  elements,  but  as  ready-made  designations  ;  and  there 
is  little  room  for  analysis  or  composition,  or  for  the  proc- 
esses that  initiate  philosophical  thought  or  simple  reflec- 
tion. It  is  but  appropriation  of  the  concrete  material  of 
speech,  provided  ages  ago  for  the  uses  of  life.  On  the 
other  hand,  this  rote-learning,  —  which  has  the  advantage 
over  our  a  b  c  work  that  it  deals  directly  in  real  wholes, 
and  does,  not  require  to  be  unlearned  in  forming  these,  — 
is  the  main  necessity  ;  for  philologist  or  for  child  there  is 
no  other  way  to  Chinese  wisdom.  The  object  being  to  re- 
member, not  to  comprehend,  the  text-books  are  generally 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  faculties  ;  and  being  held,  like  the 


2OO  STRUCTURES. 

individual  characters  which  compose  them,  indispensable 
to  knowledge,  are  also  committed  to  memory  with  great 
zeal,  like  Bible  texts  in  Christian  lands :  the  little  puppets 
"  back  the  books,"  which  means  reciting  passages  with  the 
back  turned  to  them.1 

Next  to  memorizing,  the  chief  object  of  this  training  is 

to  acquire  a  mechanical  handiness  in  writing  the 

characters.  First  of  arts  is  penmanship,  learned 
™g  and  as  a  purely  imitative  process  ;  first  discipline  in 

that  conformity  to  rule  and  law  which  is  the  pith 
of  Chinese  virtue.  Large  red  characters  are  first  traced 
in  black,  then  through  increasing  thicknesses  of  paper,  till 
the  sight  has  less  to  do  than  the  memory  ;  at  last,  the 
original  being  taken  away  entirely,  the  triumph  of  mechan- 
ism is  complete.2  Chu-tsze  defines  learning  as  imitation,  — 
conformity  to  a  prescribed  standard ;  and  in  these  schools 
even  organization  holds  an  inferior  place  to  the  mere  act  of 
"  repeating  after  the  teacher,  each  by  himself,  in  a  shrill 
voice,  rocking  to  and  fro."  3  This  perfect  image  of  automa- 
tism is  not  without  resemblance  to  the  arrangements  into 
graded  classes,  so  much  admired  in  our  Western  school- 
systems,  and  to  those  arts  of  "reading  in  concert"  which 
are  believed  to  have  such  virtue  in  our  democratic  culture. 
It  would  in  fact  be  difficult  to  imagine  a  better  outward 

symbol  of   the  mental  status   produced  by   these 

Analogues  r  .  . 

in  the  processes  or  an  excessive  organization,  so  widely 
American  acjmired  in  the  public  schools  of  America.  They 

schools. 

tend  to  destroy  all  possibility  of  original  force. 
Reading,  for  instance,  is  becoming  reduced  to  as  purely 
mechanical  a  conformity  to  prescribed  tone,  time,  and  em- 
phasis as  the  Chinese  custom  of  repeating  words  after  the 
teacher  has  produced  without  any  organization  whatever. 
Chinese  boys,  rocking  out  their  parrot  tones,  eagerly  copy- 

1  Doolittle,  I.  378.  2  Girard,  II.  70. 

8  Morache,  p.  84 ;  Brown,  in  Journal  Am.  Or.  Soc.,  II.  174. 


EDUCATION.  201 

ing  the  master  or  "  backing  the  books,"  do  but  openly  con- 
fess, in  their  noisy  rout  of  imitation,  the  mental  slavery 
which  our  prevailing  system  disguises  under  the  varnish 
of  "  drill."  "  Reading  in  concert "  has  played  its  part  in 
the  Chinese  system  also,  with  effects  upon  voice  and 
manner  which  we  need  not  cross  the  hemisphere  to  find 
in  full  operation. 

Concerning  "  imitation  "  as  a  principle  of  culture,  let  us 
add  that,  false  as  it  is,  its  moral  quality  at  least  is  Dangers 
higher  when  it  follows,  as  in  China,  a  type  that  frommech- 
does  not  change  with  human  caprice,  than  when  it  in  teach- 
is  subject  to  arbitrary  crudities  and  idiosyncracies  lngt 
imposed  on  the  pupils  by  individual  teachers.  In  both 
cases,  however,  the  real  ultimate  reference  is  to  an  all- 
powerful  authority  in  that  public  sentiment  and  common 
belief  of  which  these  educational  systems  are  meant  to  be 
the  expression.  And  when  this  public  control  has  become 
all-pervading,  as  it  steadily  tends  to  be,  whether  as  Chinese 
tradition  of  ages,  or  American  fashion  of  the  hour,  its  effect 
through  imitation,  in  levelling  and  trimming  young  minds 
into  a  dull,  self-satisfied  uniformity,  is  indisputable.  In  the 
course  of  ages  it  has  cast  all  Chinamen  in  one  mould,  and 
made  their  intellectual  productions  as  monotonous  as  their 
physical  type.  The  warning  is  for  us,  even  at  the  opposite 
pole  of  social  and  political  character. 

There  are  signs  that  the  amount  and  the  mischief  of  this 
endless  rote-learning   are  not  unperceived.      The 

.   .    ,       TheChi- 

noble  Japanese  maxim,  "True  study  is  that  which  nese aware 
one  pursues  in  order  to  direct  himself,"  is  thor-  ofthese 

dangers. 

oughly  in  the  spirit  of  Chinese  didactics,  and  prob- 
ably derived  from  them.     Nothing  is  more  common  in  the 
text-books  than  advice  to  avoid  mere  rote-knowledge,  and 
to  lay  to  heart  what  is  read.1     A  popular  writer  on  educa- 

1  Davis,  I.  270. 


202  STRUCTURES. 

tion  advises  to  "  read  much,  keep  commonplace  books,  and 
practise  undistracted  attention."  1     Confucius  says  :  - 

"  When  a  man  does  not  ask,  *  What  shall  I  think  of  this  and  of 
that  ?'  I  can  do  nothing  with  him.  Learning  without  thought  is  labor 
lost ;  thought  without  learning  is  perilous."  2 

As  if  to  compensate  for  the  lack  of  individuality,  a  pa- 
tient endeavor  to  comprehend  what  is  studied  is  constantly 
urged. 

"  The  attention  should  be  exerted  as  intensely  as  that  of  a  general 
at  the  head  of  an  army,  or  judge  in  a  criminal  court."  "  Do  not  fear 
being  slow;  fear  only  indolence."  "  Con  over  the  best  compositions 
till  you  feel  their  spirit."  "  Better  have  but  one  book  which  you  make 
wholly  your  own  than  a  library  of  ten  thousand  books,  which  you  keep 
only  to  look  at."  "  Something  is  learned  every  time  a  book  is 
opened."  "  Who  swallows  quick  can  chew  but  little."  8 

"  Do  not  imitate  useless  men,  nor  read  useless  books,  nor  speak 
useless  words."  "  The  good  bee  sips  not  a  fallen  flower."  "  Instead 
of  asking  from  others  beg  from  yourself."  "  The  wise  man  is  not  a 
talker,  nor  the  talker  a  sage."  4 

And  it  is  but  just  to  these  efforts  to  secure  mental  free- 
dom and  force,  that  we  should  reflect  how  thor- 
Paiiiatbns  oughly  original  the  culture  of  the  Chinese  really 
Chinese  is,  and  how  much  they  have  actually  achieved  by 
strenuous  application  alone.  Rote-learning,  as  the 
natural  method  of  a  constitutional  idolatry  of  the  past,  is 
of  course  much  more  spontaneous  in  Chinese  than  in 
Western  civilization.  Of  such  mental  habit  the  memory 
is  of  course  the  chief  instrument ;  and  the  immense  part 
which  this  faculty  plays  in  culture  is  intimately  related  to 
religion,  resulting  in  a  prodigious  amount  of  oral  tradition, 
and  in  feats  in  the  transmission  of  formulas  and  texts  of 
which  we  have  but  slight  conception.  It  is  said  that,  if  the 
Four  Books  of  Chinese  Classics  were  destroyed  to-day,  there 

»  Williams,  I.  425.  2  Lunyu,  XV.  15,  II.  15. 

8  Davis,  II.  ch.  xvi.  *  Morison's  Dictionary. 


EDUCATION.  2O3 

are  a  million  persons  who  could  restore  the  whole  to-mor- 
row. What  imagined  miracle  of  biblical  conservation 
could  compare  with  this  natural  inspiration  of  the  memory, 
as  proof  of  authority  in  the  symbols  of  a  faith  ?  Or  if 
labor  in  memorizing  texts  be  a  sign  of  religious  ardor,  our 
best-booked  Bibliolater  might  well  learn  earnestness  at  the 
feet  of  the  Chinese  Doctor  of  Letters. 

But  the  religious  element  in  this  educational  system  is 
not  shown  by  its  earnest  culture  of  the  memory 
only.  More  prominent  than  rote-work  in  the  pro-  ^u^ 
gramme  of  the  school  system  is  respect  for  moral  moral  eie- 
laws  as  eternal  and  divine.  Modesty  and  humility ;  ^"in.^ 
reverence  for  the  old  ;  the  evil  of  war  and  the  wick- 
edness of  cruelty  and  conquest ;  the  love  of  truth,  purity, 
and  self-restraint ;  delicacy  of  feeling,  devotion  to  duties, 
fidelity  to  functions,  —  are  the  burden  of  this  popular  teach- 
ing, the  very  substance  of  text  and  precept.  I  believe,  not 
only  that  the  whole  series  of  reading  books  used  in  the 
schools  of  China  does  not  contain  a  single  impure  precept, 
but  that  there  is  scarce  one  noble  conception  of  duty  and 
humanity  that  cannot  be  found  represented  in  the  daily 
recitations  of  these  children  of  a  grand  ethical  literature, 
who  are  taught  to  prize  it,  not  with  slavish  superstition, 
but  for  the  naturalness  of  its  ideal.  Nor  does  this  textual 
teaching  fail  of  a  practical  basis  in  the  home.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  find  any  treatise  on  home  education  more 
admirable  than  the  Instructions  of  the  Sacred  Edict, 
whose  utilitarian  wisdom  is  here  overflowed  by  tenderest 
sentiment. 

The   regular   text-books   for  younger  children   are   the 
Siao-hiao,  or   "Guide   of  Youth;"  the   Tsien-tsze- 
wan,  or  "  Thousand-Characters  Classic  ;  "  the  Hiao- 
king,  or  "  Book  of  Filial  Duty  ; "  and  the  San-tsze- 


2O4  STRUCTURES. 

king,  or  "  Trimetrical  Classic."     The   pith  of  all  these  is 
morality,  taught  by  precept  and  example. 

The    Siao-hiao}   supposed   to   have   been   compiled   by 
Chu-hi   in  the  twelfth  century,  circulates   the  life  Thesiao- 
of  Chinese  faith  through  every  artery  and  vein  of  hiao- 
the  nation.     It  opens  with  the  principles  of  education. 

"  The  children  of  the  people  are  taught  to  love  parents,  respect 
superiors,  honor  teachers,  select  friends  ;  fundamental  principles  in 
governing  self,  regulating  the  family,  ruling  the  State,  tranquillizing 
the  world." 

Then  come  duties  prescribed  for  the  different  epochs  of 
life,  and  for  the  "five  great  relations," — father  and  son, 
king  and  minister,  husband  and  wife,  elder  and  younger,  and 
friendship.  Their  definiteness  of  concrete  detail  leaves 
no  room  for  doubt  nor  for  choice  of  method  ;  the  ready- 
made  ideal  is  just  to  be  put  on  and  worn.  But  the  moral- 
ity is  humane,  gentle,  even  tender.  Oriental  subjection,  as 
of  a  child  to  its  parent,  or  a  wife  to  her  husband,  is  tem- 
pered by  precepts  implying  mutual  sympathy  and  devotion. 
If  the  son  shall  keep  even  his  own  wife,  only  by  and  during 
the  parental  consent,  he  is  also  to 

"  Warn  his  father  and  mother  if  they  do  wrong,  and  to  love  what 
they  love." 

"  If  he  loses  them,  he  should  think  of  their  death  when  winter 
winds  blow,  and  of  seeing  them  again  when  spring  is  warming  his 
heart.  When  he  looks  at  their  tablets,  let  him  feel  that  he  sees  them, 
and  believe  that  they  hear  his  sighs  of  regret." 

Filial  piety  is  thus  his  teacher  of  immortality,  as  well  as 
of  reverent  love. 

"  However  poor,  let  him  not  sell  the  vessels  of  his  ancestral  wor- 
ship ;  however  cold,  let  him  not  put  on  the  dresses  that  belong  to  it, 
nor  cut  down  trees  on  the  hirls  where  his  parents  are  buried,  to  build 
his  own  house." 

1  Translated  by  Pere  Noel,  in  his  Confucian  Classics,  into  Latin ;  thence  into  French 
by  llAbW  Pluquet. 


EDUCATION.  2O5 

"  Let  him  care  for  his  own  body,  avoiding  negligence  and  base  uses, 
as  for  a  trust  committed  to  him  by  them."  l 

The  spheres  marked  out  for  husband  and  wife  in  Eastern 
society  are  to  be  equally  respected  by  both.  The  husband 
should  not  speak  in  loud  or  harsh  tones  in  the  female 
apartments,  nor  use  gestures  of  contempt.  Woman,  sub- 
ject of  course  to  man,  yet  has  her  "  empire  in  the  inner 
apartments  ; "  nor  may  she  be  divorced,  if  she  have  no 
parents  to  receive  her,  or  if  she  have  mourned  with  her 
husband  for  his  parent's  death  ;  or  if  she  has  gained  part 
of  the  common  stock  of  means.2 

Respect  for  older  persons  is  to  be  shown  by  the  bearing, 
and  by  modesty  in  asking  questions.  If  one  meets  an  old 
man  carrying  a  heavier  load  than  one's  own,  he  should 
assume  it  all,  or  as  much  of  it  as  he  can  bear.3 

"  Take  only  such  friends  as  will  advance  you  in  piety  and  virtue. 
Friends  must  give  each  other  good  counsel,  and  animate  each  other 
to  the  love  of  goo'dness.  Do  not  exact  from  others  that  they  love  you 
as  much  as  they  can  and  ought,  but  exact  this  love  from  yourself  for 
them.  Reprove  and  warn  your  friend,  but  if  he  is  not  tractable,  de- 
sist ;  do  not  disgrace  yourself."  4 

Under  the  head  of  "  Care  for  One's  Self"  are  given  very 
proper  rules  of  good  manners,  which  would  be  as  pertinent 
to  Western  as  to  Chinese  society. 

"  Do  not  thrust  out  your  ear  to  listen,  nor  answer  in  loud  tones; 
nor  wag  the  head  like  an  empty  person;  nor  strut;  nor  sprawl  the 
legs  in  sitting  ;  nor  laugh  at  others  ;  nor  speak  precipitately  ;  nor 
maintain  your  views  with  obstinacy." 

"  Honesty  and  equity  will  appear  in  the  movements  of  your  body, 
in  sweetness  of  countenance,  in  kind  words,  in  decent  commands."  3 

Temperance  as  a  part  of  decent  behavior  at  meals  is 
enforced  by  reference  to  ancient  drinking  laws,  so  careful 
of  excess  "  that  those  who  observed  them  could  drink  all 
day  without  intoxication."  6 

1  Siao-hiao,  II.  i.  »  Ibid.,  II.  in.  »  Ibid.,  II.  iv. 

«  Ibid.,  II.  v.  »  Ibid.,  III.  •  Ibid.,  III. 


2O6  STRUCTURES. 

Then  follow  examples  of  ideal  characters,  of  which  this 
literature  knows  no  end  ;  and  their  frequent  extravagance 
is  often  relieved  by  practical  wisdom. 

A  whipped  boy  cries  for  fear  that  his  mother  will  weaken 
herself  by  the  effort  to  punish  him  ;  a  princess  keeps  her 
faith  as  if  married,  after  her  lover's  death  ;  another  stands 
fast  by  her  betrothed  when  he  is  stricken  with  contagious 
malady,  saying,  "his  disease  is  mine  ;"  a  foolish  youth  of 
high  family  reproves  his  mother  for  spinning,  as  an  igno- 
ble employment,  and  receives  in  reply  a  lecture  on  the 
nobility  of  labor,  ending  thus  :  — 

"  It  is  because  I  am  concerned  for  the  honor  of  our  family  that  I 
often  counsel  you  not  to  tarnish,  by  a  useless  life  of  pleasure,  the  noble 
record  of  your  father."  l 

Next  come  admirable  maxims  from  various  sources ; 
such  as  the  dying  words  of  an  emperor,  to  his  son,  — 

"  Never  allow  yourself  to  do  a  wrong  thing  because  it  is  a  trifle,  nor 
to  neglect  a  good  action  because  it  seems  mediocre  ;  " 

and  the  aphorism  of  a  wise  minister,  — 

l<  He  who  is  reckless  of  his  own  reputation  dishonors  his  parents  : 
from  this  flow  the  great  vices  ;  " 

and  the  advice  of  another  to  a  nephew  who  beset  him  for 
an  office :  — 

"  Maintain  in  yourself  always  a  sentiment  of  fear  mingled  with 
respect,  and  be  assured  that  great  application,  and  study  of  manners 
and  government,  are  the  real  essentials  to  high  position.  Avoid  every 
thing  that  would  cause  you  to  blush  when  you  pay  to  others  the  respect 
that  is  their  due  :  seek  public  good  more  than  your  own  advantage. 
Beware  the  love  of  wine  that  has  been  the  downfall  of  kingdoms. 
Speak  little.  Do  not  fall  out  with  friends  for  a  word.  The  ancients 
held  flatterers  in  horror.  You  see  me  at  the  summit  of  grandeur,  and 
on  the  brink  of  an  abyss  :  pity  me,  and  do  not  add  to  my  burdens. 
Live  retired  ;  fly  celebrity  and  power.  Heaven  gives  honors  :  wait  its 
time.  He  who  runs  too  fast,  loses  his  labor.  An  old  book  says, 

1  Siao-hiao,  IV. 


EDUCATION.  2O7 

1  The  whole  day  is   not  sufficient^for  a  happy  man's  power  to  do  good, 
nor  for  an  unhappy  man's  to  do  evil.' " 

Sects  are  severely  criticised  for  pretending  to  know  the 
nature  of  spirits,  and  explain  all  phenomena. 
Here  is  a  bit  of  theological  common  sense :  — 

"  Deluded  men  believe  that  presents  to  idols  save  them  from  hell, 
and  open  heaven  ;  and  that  in  hell  people  are  cut  to  pieces,  and  burned ; 
not  reflecting  that  at  death  the  body  is  dissolved." 

The  characteristic  work-impulse  is  encouraged,  and 
guided  into  patient  conformity  to  the  real  conditions  of 
success. 

"  Learn  one  thing  to-day  and  another  to-morrow,  and  in  time  you 
will  know  an  infinity  of  things  ;  discuss  one  thing  to-day,  and  another 
to-morrow,  and  in  time  you  will  have  fathomed  an  infinite  number ; 
undertake  one  hard  thing  to-day,  and  another  to-morrow,  and  in  time 
you  will  acquire  constancy  in  meeting  difficulties.  Thus  you  will  learn 
to  love  reason,  and  enjoy  the  delights  which  it  has  earned." 

M  When  Yao-kam,  governor  of  Quan-chen,  had  nothing  to  do,  he 
carried  two  bricks  out  of  the  house  in  the  morning  and  brought  them 
in  again  at  evening,  to  keep  himself  in  habits  of  work.  Formerly,  he 
said,  the  Prince  Yu  feared  to  lose  a  minute :  should  not  a  common 
man  grudge  it  even  more  ?  Seeing  mandarins  neglecting  their  duties 
for  dice,  he  overthrew  their  tables,  and  flung  their  dice  into  the 
river." 

There  are  tales  of  hard-working  men,  who  left  their 
children  security  and  ease  instead  of  trouble  and  danger, 
teaching  the  wisdom  of  earning  their  way  instead  of  seek- 
ing office  ;  of  self-denying  sons,  heroic  women,  humane 
statesmen  ;  rich  men  who  preferred  making  others  happy 
with  their  wealth,  to  leaving  it  for  their  children  as  a  bur- 
den or  a  snare.  And  the  ethics  of  self-culture  rise  to 
a  manly  tone  in  such  instructions  as  these:  — 

"  The  most  stupid  people  are  wise  in  censuring  others  ;  the  most 
sharp-sighted  are  fools  in  censuring  themselves.  Change  this  method  : 
mark  your  own  defects  as  you  now  mark  those  of  other  men,  and  their 


2O8  STRUCTURES. 

defects  as  you  now  mark  your  own.     But  do  not  despair  if  you  do 
not  equal  men  who  have  raised  themselves  to  lofty  virtue."  ' 

Its  complete  expression  of  the  qualities  of  Chinese  mo- 
rality, built  into  a  permanent  educational  ideal  and  diffused 
throughout  the  Empire,  renders  the  Siao-hiao  a  very  sig- 
nificant element  of  culture,  and  must  justify  our  extended 
analysis. 

The  HIAOKING  is  traditionally  compiled  by  one  disciple 

of  Confucius  from  his  answers  to  another.2     But 

The  Hiao-  jts  reaj  author  is  unknown.     For  at  least  a  thou- 

King. 

sand  years  it  has  been  a  school-book  of  the  Empire. 
It  teaches  the  scope  of  "  Filial  Piety,"  which  covers  far 
wider  ground  than  in  any  other  system  of  faith  ;  and  its 
philosophy,  —  based  on  the  regulative  harmonies  of  Nature, 
on  the  law  of  imitation,  on  reciprocal  duties  between  those 
above  and  those  beneath,  and  on  the  force  of  example,  —  is, 
in  relation  to  Chinese  social  life,  what  the  order  of  celestial 
movements  and  the  exhaustless  productivity  of  the  earth  are 
to  the  visible  universe.3  In  short,  we  have  here  the  rationale 
of  patriarchalism,  and  the  simple,  easy  evolution  of  those 
beliefs  and  institutions  that  flow  from  the  idea.  The  ethics 
of  the  nation  are  justified  to  the  mind  of  its  youth,  while 
a  deep  religious  element  appears  in  the  child-likeness  of 
its  faith  in  its  own  principle  and  law.  Pan-kou,  a  great 
scholar,  says  of  the  Hiao-king,  — 

"  It  is  the  Book  of  Heaven,  the  duty  of  Earth,  the  rule  of  action 
for  peoples  :  every  word  elevates  the  heart." 

A  few  extracts  will  convey  its  substance. 

"  Of  filial  piety  the  first  principle  is  to  preserve,  in  integrity  and 
force,  the  bodies  we  have  received  from  our  parents  ;  its  perfection  is 

1  Siao-hiao,  V.  VI. 

2  Its  eighteen  short  chapters  are  translated  by  Noel  into  Latin,  by  Pluquet  into  French,  and 
by  Bridgman  into  English.     Chinese  Repos.  for  1835;  als°  La  Chine  Ouverte,  pp.  257-259; 
Wylie,  p.  7. 

8  Hiao-kine,  ch.  vii. 


EDUCATION.  2O9 

in  cultivation  of  virtue,  and  earning  a  name  whi.ch  does  honor  to  their 
memory." 

"  Its  model  is  the  constancy  of  the  heavenly  bodies  in  procuring 
what  is  needed  by  the  earth,  and  regulating  the  actions  of  men." 

"  Of  all  virtues  it  is  the  greatest ;  of  all  vices,  none  so  great  as  the 
lack  of  it." 

"  The  kings  of  old,  fulfilling  it,  would  not  dare  despise  an  old  person 
or  a  widow,  nor  one  famed  for  wisdom  or  virtue.  Prefects,  following 
their  lead,  failed  not  of  good  manners  to  their  humblest  servants.  And 
domestics,  won  by  this  treatment,  entered  with  joy  into  rites  in  honor 
of  their  own  parents.  Hence  the  whole  Empire  enjoyed  peace." 

"One  virtuous  king  draws  after  him  a  whole  people.  In  honoring 
one,  he  makes  an  infinite  multitude  happy.  Let  a  king  therefore  fear, 
as  if  walking  on  thin  ice.  Let  fear  of  harming  the  memory  of  your 
parents  have  the  first  thoughts  of  your  dreams,  and  let  not  sleep  drive 
them  away.'' 

The  TSIEN-TSZE-WAN  l  is  a  quaint  conceit  of  literature,  con- 
taining just  a  thousand  different  characters  ;  teach- 

i        •.  i          i    •     _       i  f  •         The  Tsien- 

ing  by  its  very  structure  the  dainty  love  of  manip-  tsze.wan. 
ulating  these  symbols,  which  absorbs  so  much  of 
the  national  mind.  Composed  as  a  literary  feat  thirteen 
centuries  ago,  it  has  kept  its  ground  as  a  text-book  by  rea- 
son of  combining  most  elements  inherent  in  Chinese  char- 
acter. Concrete,  prosaic,  pedagogic,  it  backs  unexceptionble 
moralities  with  practical  examples,  and  treats  the  relations 
of  natural  phenomena  to  human  life  in  an  industrial  in- 
terest quite  suggestive  of  Hesiod's  "  Works  and  Days." 
Of  course  a  Poor-Ricliard  quality  of  motive  runs  through 
it,  a  takc-carc-of -oneself  virtue  ;  yet  not  without  intima- 
tion of  something  higher. 

"  Leave  behind  you  only  purposes  of  good,  and  strive  so  to  act  as 
to  command  respect.     When  satirized  or  admonished,  examine  your- 
self.    And  do  this  the  more  thoroughly  when  favors  increase." 
"  Let  your  step  be  even,  and  keep  your  head  erect." 
"  Command  your  thoughts,  that  you  may  be  wise." 

1  Translated  in  Chinese  Repos.  September,  1835;  a^so  Williams,  I.  532. 
14 


210  STRUCTURES. 

"Sounds  reverberate  through  deep  valleys  and  re-echo  through 
vacant  halls.  Even  so  misery  follows  vice,  and  happiness  virtue." 

Its  bare  enumeration  of  natural  routines  breathes  the 
tranquillizing  spirit  that  attends  acceptance  of  orderly  law. 

"The  heavens  are  sombre,  the  earth  is  of  yellow  hue. 
The  whole  universe  was  once  one  wide  waste. 

The  sun  reaches  the  meridian  and  declines  ;  moons  wax  and  wane ; 
In  divisions  and  constellations  are  the  stars  arranged  ; 
Heat  and  cold  alternately  prevail ; 
Autumn  for  ingathering,  winter  for  hoarding  up. 
Music  harmonizes  the  two  principles  of  Nature,"  £c. 

It  is  an  acquiescent  reassuring  calendar  of  natural  times 
and  seasons ;  the  image  of  Chinese  routine,  of  rotary,  piv- 
otal motion.  Enumerations  are  made  in  a  true  spirit  of 
positivism,  stating  facts  and  relations,  without  seeking 
causes  or  dwelling  on  hidden  powers. 

Similar  is  the  SAN-TSZE-KING,  compiled  by  a  private 
The  San-  teacher  six  hundred  years  ago,  and  a  school 

tsze-king.      text-book   CVCr  SlttCC.1 

Opening  with  a  philosophy  of  universal  education,  — 

"  All  men,  at  birth,  are  by  nature  radically  good,2 
But,  if  not  educated,  the  natural  character  is  changed,"  — 

it  exhorts  to  study  with  undivided  attention  :  — 

"  As  jade  unwrought  is  imperfect  material  for  vessels,  so  a  man 
without  education  does  not  know  what  is  right." 

Then  follows  the  long  list  of  things  everybody  should 
know,  —  the  obvious  facts  of  nature  and  experience  strung 
on  a  thread  of  numerical  categories,  forms  and  elements 
being  arranged  for  convenience  to  the  memory,  like  our 
almanac  doggerel  about  the  length  of  months. 

1  Translated  by  Malan  (1855),  by  Neumann  (German)  1836,  and  by  Bridgman.  Chinese 
Repos.  IV.  ;  also  Williams,  I.  430. 

*  Or  "  susceptible  of  goodness"  (Neumann). 


EDUCATION.  211 

The  natural  facts  laid  down,  next  comes  a  list  of  books 
classical,  moral,  historical,  philosophical,  the  names  of 
which  are  to  be  committed  in  view  of  future  study  ;  then 
a  summary  of  the  national  history,  epitomizing  the  thirty 
dynasties  for  a  similar  purpose. 

"  Have  them  in  your  mouth  and  recite  them  ;  in  your  heart,  and 
ponder  them.  In  the  morning  be  at  the  work,  and  in  the  evening 
also." 

The  usual  list  of  old  sages  and  wonderful  boys  is  brought 
out  to  inspire  emulation,  by  their  marvellous  feats  of  per- 
severance and  endurance,  —  the  martyrology  of  learning. 
Obvious  analogies  from  nature  are  used  to  enforce  the  love 
of  study  ;  and  the  whole  argument  points  forward  to  final 
rewards  of  effort,  in 'public  advancement  and  the  power  of 
doing  good. 

"  Study  in  youth,  and  act  in  manhood  ;  you  will  approach  the  king, 
and  bless  the  poor ;  you  will  honor  your  own  name,  and  shed  lustre 
on  your  father's,  and  exalt  your  descendants'." 

"Some  men  leave  gold  to  their  children  ;  but  I  give  them  instruc- 
tion, and  leave  them  a  book." 

"  There  is  merit  in  diligence,  but  no  profit  in  idleness ;  therefore  I 
warn  you  to  do  your  best." 

The  same  exhortation  to  make  the  most  of  opportunity 
and  pay  the  honest  price  for  success  -is  the  burden  of  the 
horn-books,  books  of  proverbs,  and  children's  rhymes  that 
circulate  in  the  schools.  They  are  but  versions  of  the  Tri- 
metrical  Classic. 

"  Do  not  say  your  families  are  poor.  Those  that  can  handle  the 
pencil,  go  where  they  will,  need  never  beg  for  favors." 

"  Civil  and  military  office  is  not  inherited,  and  men  must  rely  on 
their  own  efforts.     In  all  the  world  nothing  is  impossible;  only  the 
hearts  of  men  want  resolution." 
"  Polish  the   mirror,  and  light  is  reflected  ;  sift  the  sand,  and  gold 

appears : 
And  they  who  wish  to  learn  must  put  forth  all  their  powers." 1 

1  Chinese  Repository,  1835,  P-  2%7- 


212  STRUCTURES. 

Williams   criticises   the  Trimetrical  Classic,   as   well  as 

Chinese  school-books  generally,  as  unfit  for  begin- 

christian    ners  because  unprovided  with  sanctions,  and  com- 


p6tent   only  to  serve  in  a  system  of  rote-learning. 

But  let  the  reader  compare  its  simple  details,  histor- 
ical, ethical,  practical,  and  its  every-day  illustrations  appeal- 
ing to  the  sense  of  duty,  the  love  of  culture  and  humanity, 
with  the  theological  manual  which  has  been  constructed  by 
a  Protestant  missionary  on  the  same  outward  plan  and  un- 
der the  same  title,  to  supersede  it.1  Here  are  propounded 
the  mysteries  of  the  Fall,  of  total  depravity,  atonement, 
resurrection,  and  final  judgment  ;  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer 
and  of  divine  grace,  —  abundantly  supplying  what  our  good 
missionary  would  call  "  the  want  of  those  powerful  motives 
which  the  Bible  contains  as  the  sanctions  of  its  precepts." 
Conceive  of  the  experience  of  a  Chinese  child  in  reach- 
ing, by  the  path  of  paradoxes  utterly  inexpressible  in 
his  language,  after  the  repulsive  dogmas  of  man's  nat- 
ural hatred  of  good,  the  impotence  of  human  reason,  and 
the  wickedness  of  the  heart,  —  the  pure  contradiction  of 
every  incentive  and  association  capable  of  leading  him 
to  moral  endeavor  ! 

Somewhat  more  spiritual,  as  well  as  more  comprehensi- 

ble to  Chinese  faculties,  is  the  "  Trimetrical  Classic  " 
The  of  the  semi-Biblicised  Tai-ping  rebels  ;  2  a  curious 

Classic!*     farrago  of  Shemitic  and  Chinese  theism,  of  Chris- 

tian personages  transmuted  by  Chinese  dress  and 
traditions,  of  Old  and  New  Testament  mythology  sketched 
in  the  dull  gray  color  of  Chinese  concreteness  ;  Jesus, 
elder  brother  of  the  Tai-ping-wang,  wived  and  domiciled 
in  a  Chinese  heaven,  and  sent  to  frighten  impish  spirits. 
But  the  national  taste  intersperses  even  in  this  many 
simple  and  excellent  moralities. 

1  Chinese  Repository,  1855.  *  Ibid.,    1855. 


EDUCATION.  213 

How  largely  the  moral  element  enters  into  the  ideal  of 
Chinese  culture  will  appear  from  passages  in  which 
study  is   mentioned   in   the   Confucian   "  Lun-yu,"   Studyas 
first  of  the  five  books  which  contain  the  teachings   Confucius. 
of  the  "Great  Master"  and  his  disciples.     The  ex- 
tracts are  not  selected  for  their  special  excellence,  but  as 
forming  the  substance  of  what  is  there  said  about  study, 
and  presenting   fairly  the  spirit   of    the  Classics    on   the 
subject. 

Confucius  describes  the  true  scholar  as  one  who,  in  per- 
formance of  public  duty,  is  "  ready  to  sacrifice  his  life." 

"  When  the  opportunity  of  gain  is  presented  to  him,  he  thinks  on 
virtue.  He  is  reverent  in  sacrifice  ;  in  mourning,  absorbed  in  the  sor- 
row he  should  feel.  He  who  cherishes  love  of  comfort  is  not  fit  to  be 
a  scholar.  The  main  object  of  study  is  to  unfold  the  aim  ;  with  one 
who  loves  words,  but  does  not  improve,  I  can  do  nothing.  The 
scholar's  burden  is  perfection  :  is  it  not  heavy  ?  It  ends  but  with  life: 
is  it  not  enduring?"1 

"Learning  is  like  raising  a  mound  :  if  I  stop  with  this  basket  of 
earth,  it  is  my  own  fault.  It  is  like  throwing  earth  on  the  ground  ;  one 
basket  at  a  time,  yet  I  advance."  * 

"  The  true  scholar  is  not  a  mere  utensil."  "  Leaving  virtue  without 
proper  culture  ;  failing  thoroughly  to  discuss  what  is  learned  ;  being 
unable  to  move  towards  the  righteousness  of  which  knowledge  is 
gained  ;  and  being  unable  to  change  what  is  not  good,  — these  are  the 
things  that  (in  my  scholars)  give  me  anxiety."3 

"  If  a  man  keeps  cherishing  his  old  knowledge,  so  as  ever  to  acquire 
new,  he  may  be  a  teacher  of  others."  "  I  marked  Yen- Yuen's  constant 
advance  ;  I  never  saw  him  pause."  "  Often  the  blade  springs,  but 
the  plant  does  not  go  on  to  flower :  often  the  plant  flowers,  but  pro- 
duces no  fruit."  4 

"  Having  completed  his  studies,  the  scholar  should  devote  himself  to 
official  functions.  He  should  say,  '  I  am  not  concerned  that  I  have  no 
place  :  I  am  concerned  how  I  shall  fit  myself  for  one.  I  am  not  con- 
cerned at  not  being  known  :  I  seek  to  be  worthy  to  be  known.' " 5 

i  Lunyu,  XIX.  i ;  XIV.  3  ;  IX.  23;  VIII.  7.  *  Ibid.  IX.  x8. 

»  Ibid.  II.  12  ;  VIII.  3.  *  Ibid.  II.  n  ;  IX.  20,  21. 

«  Ibid.  XIX.  13;  IV.  14. 


214  STRUCTURES. 

Nothing  can  be  manlier  or  humaner  than  the  ethics  taught 
the  people  by  public  reading  of  the  "  Sacred  Edict  " 

the  sacred  of  Kang-hi  with  the  commentary  of  Yung-ching.1 
Its  counsels  are  worthy  of  Epictetus  or  Aurelius. 

A  few  sentences  will  suffice. 

"In  every  affair  retire  a  step,  and  you  have  an  advantage." 

"  Seeing  men  in  haste,  do  not  seek  to  overtake  them." 

"Each  grass-blade  has  its  drop  of  dew.  The  wild  birds  lay  up  no 
stores  ;  but  heaven  and  earth  are  wide.  Strange,  indeed,  if  you  can- 
not rest  in  the  duties  of  your  sphere." 

"  If  you  reject  the  iron,  you  will  never  make  the  steel." 

"  To  starve  is  a  small  matter,  to  lose  one's  virtue  is  a  great  one." 

"  Covet  not  an  empty  name." 

"  If  treated  rudely,  return  it  not,  but  examine  yourself." 

"  The  modest  gain,  the  self-satisfied  lose." 

"  The  more  unlikely  I  am  to  be  successful,  the  more  diligently 
will  I  study.  What  have  I  to  do  with  fate  ?  " 

"  Teach  children  that  in  friendship  one  should  be  one,  and  two,  two  ; 
there  must  be  no  deception." 

"  Let  the  root  be  good,  and  the  fruit  shall  not  be  evil." 

"Culture  in  manners  will  make  the  blustering  soldier  view  the  Shi 
and  Shu  as  his  coat  of  mail." 

"•Becoming  manners  shall  bring  back  the  lovely  unity  of  ancient 
virtues.  Do  you  think  that,  by  bearing  with  insulting  persons,  I  shall 
fall  into  dishonor  ?  " 

"Should  right  principles  be  separated  from  right  manners,  they 
would  no  longer  be  right  principles.  But  without  sincerity  manners 
are  mere  apish  bowing  and  scraping." 

"  They  who  say  conscience  may  be  good  enough,  but  it  does  not  sup- 
ply one  with  food,  are  fit  materials  for  the  cord  and  the  bamboo." 

"  Set  not  dthers  at  variance.  Suppress  slanders,  and  protect  the 
innocent.  Frame  not  indictments  to  defraud  and  oppress." 

"  Maintain  a  love  of  harmony,  that  throughout  your  families  the 
common  speech  shall  be,  *  Let  us  help  one  another.'  Then  shall  the 
world  be  at  peace." 

"  Let  young  and  old  be  as  one  body  ;  their  joys  and  sorrows  as  of 
one  family.  Let  the  instructed  lead  the  way  by  example.  Let  the 
unity  of  the  Empire  extend  to  myriad  countries,  and  spread  harmony 
through  the  world." 

1  Translated  by  Milne,  1817. 


EDUCATION.  215 

"  Though  at  the  height  of  fame,  you  ought  in  the  watches  of  the 
night  to  lay  your  hand  on  your  breast  and  ask  yourself,  '  Have  I  cause 
of  shame,  or  not  ? ' ': 

These  may  serve  as  hints  of  the  quality  of  the  "  Edicts," 
whose  enlightened  definitions  and  precepts  cover  every 
sphere  of  life.  Their  rationalistic  spirit  will  be  treated 
elsewhere.  The  drawback  of  a  pedagogic  and  prescriptive 
manner  is  of  course  not  lacking,  and  submission  to  impe- 
rial wisdom  is  their  beginning  and  end. 

As  the  moral  relations  are  expressed  in  a  concrete  ideal, 
in  which   no  change  is  supposed  possible,  so  they 
are  embodied  in  rites  and  ceremonies  which  share  Rites  and. 
their  sacredness.     As  the  child  learns  ideas  in  the  ais. 
form  of  actual  written  characters,  so  he  conceives 
duties  in  the  form  of  strictly  regulated  actions.     Hence 
the  prime  importance   of  the  "  proprieties "  in  education. 
They  are  not  affectations,  but  recognized  as  the  natural 
order  of  conduct,  the  virtue  of  behavior.     The  Li-ki,  or 
Book  of  Rites,  says  of  music  and  ceremonies  that  "  the  one 
reforms  the  inward,  the  other  the  outward  man.     Whoso  is 
thus  perfected  has  joy  in  the  heart,  respect  in  sen- 
timents, sweetness  in   manners."1     The  Li-ki  has  Theirbasis 
been  for  ages   the  hand-book  of  that  ritual  or  for-  order. 
ma  I  order,  which  is  the  reverse  side  of  the  moral 
order,  as  the  latter  rests  on  the  cosmical.     For  the  au- 
thority of   fixed    rules   of   behavior,  while   scarcely  more 
absolute  than  that  of  fashion  in  Western  society,  is  not, 
like   fashion,   detached  from    the    highest    law    of    ethics 
and  faith,  but    strictly  identical  with    it.      To   the   Chi- 
nese, their  ceremonial  is  simply  man  in  his  manifold  rela- 
tions.2     Its  minute  rules,   which  appear  to   exhaust   the 
possibilities  of  prescription,  are  believed  to  express  man's 

1  Li-ki,  VIII. 

1  The  wide  extent  of  these  ritual  relations  is  unfolded  in  the  Tcheou-li  chapter  on  "Minis- 
try of  Rites." 


2l6  STRUCTURES. 

normal  relations  to  the  universe.  They  seem,  in  fact,  to 
have  historically  grown  out  of  the  national  consciousness 
of  these  relations,  instead  of  being  imposed  by  arbitrary 
authority  or  transient  will.  What  they  correspond  with 
in  Western  life  is  not  our  etiquette,  red  tape,  or  religious 
formalism,  but  such  conformities  as  are  admitted  by  all 
of  us  to  be  natural  and  proper  to  all  right  performance  of 
functions,  and  therefore  of  highest  import.  These  con- 
formities would  of  course  differ  from  those  of  the  Chinese, 
being  based  on  more  complex  relations  and  wider  knowl- 
edge of  nature,  and  hence  more  open  to  changes  of  detail ; 
but  their  ethical  ground  is  really  the  same.  Thus  the  mi- 
nute ritual  of  Chinese  filial  piety  consists  in  routines  of 
conduct  which  are  recognized  as  beyond  all  question  the 
best,  and  indeed  the  only,  ways  in  which  an  ideal  love  and 
reverence  can  be  fulfilled.  It  is  sufficiently  clear,  from  the 
spirit  of  these  prescriptions,  that  this  minuteness  itself  is 
simply  an  endeavor  to  inspire  the  whole  of  domestic  life 
with  real  reverence  and  love.  For  the  Oriental  mind  the 
very  permanence  of  the  form  imports,  not  its  rigidity,  but 
the  absoluteness  of  moral  relation,  and  the  pure  content 
involved  in  whatever  harmonizes  with  the  constitution  of 
(Oriental)  man.  "Ceremony,"  says  Pan-kou,  uis  in  no 
sense  arbitrary ;  in  its  establishment,  men  found  their 
proper  rules,  and  checked  arbitrary  force."  We  have  here 
an  exact  opposite  to  the  oppressive  constraint  of  rites  and 
observances  imposed  by  a  religious  law  in  recognized 
antagonism  with  human  nature,  and  revealed  as  alien  to 
reason.  So  far,  it  is  a  form  of  evolution  ;  while  the  other 
is  a  form  of  subjugation. 

No  Chinese  boy  is  ever  taught  that  the  ceremonial  is 
purposely  enforced  against  his  innate  tendencies  ;  nor  is 
the  ground  of  its  authority  placed  in  mere  antiquity,  nor  in 
arbitrary  appointment  or  divine  choice.  It  does  not  com- 
mend itself  by  the  destruction  of  natural  self-respect,  but  by 


EDUCATION.  217 

its  appeal  to  the  highest  assurances  and  aspirations  of  his 
social  life. 

Let  us  cull  the  soul  of  the  Li-ki,  for  it  has  a  soul  ;  and 
Chu-hi  says  :  "  He  who  would  study  rites  need  only  THE  LI-KI. 
glean  from  the  Li-ki  passages  of  sound  morality  ^y^°*" 
and  practical  wisdom."  1  Upon  this  work  it  may  rites- 
fairly  be  said  that  the  State  religion  is  substantially 
founded. 

Laws,  according  to  this  philosophy  of  manners,  are  of 
diverse  origin.  Some  are  copies  of  natural  forms  ;  others 
(rcligiojts)  proceed  from  the  cultus  of  ancestors,  breathing 
humanity  and  justice  ;  others  (local),  from  mountains  and 
rivers  ;  others  (family),  from  the  five  domestic  relations. 

"Rites  proceed  from  the  one  great  Principle  of  all  things,  distin- 
guishing them,  some  for  heaven,  others  for  earth.  When  pro- 
claimed, they  are  called  commandments  ;  but  they  are  always  copied 
from  Heaven."2 

« 

Here  is  no  hint  of  a  purpose  to  legitimate  personal, 
even  imperial,  sway.  The  ceremonial  goes  behind  what  is 

1  More  than  a  thousand  commentaries  have  been  written  on  the  Li-ki,  three  hundred  of 
which  remain,  all  dating  previous  to  our  age  ;   besides  others  continually  added  (Gallery).     It  is 
classed  among  the  canonical  books,  and  supposed  to  be  founded  on  the  I-li,  or  Ritual  of  Man- 
ners, ascribed  to  the  great  Tcheou-kung,  reputed  author  of  the  Tcheou-li,  1120  B.C.    (Wylie.) 
These  works,  however,  have  faded  out  of  sight,  while  the  Li-ki  still  stands,  having  been,  though 
without  adequate  proof,  associated  with  the  teachings  of  Confucius.     Gallery's  charge,  that  it 
puts  unworthy  sentiments  into  the  mouth  of  Confucius,  is  not  very  well  sustaiend  ;  and  his  con- 
clusion, that  it  was  written  from  notes  and  fragments  of  his  sayings,  has  as  little  proof  as  the 
old  legend  that  seventy  disciples  compiled  it  from  his  own  manuscripts.     More  probable  is  the 
suggestion  that  its  diversities  of  style  imply  a  slow  process  of  accretion.     It  is  a  multifarious 
work,  and  deals  in  every  thing  relating  to  Chinese  life.     The  I-li,  Tcheou-li,  and  Li-ki  may 
have  drawn  from  common  sources.    The  last  can  be  traced  with  certainty  to  the  Han  revival  of 
letters  in  the  second  century  B.C.,  in  which  it  figures  as  one  of  the  recovered  works  of  great 
value.     But  this  was  much  larger  than  the  present  Li-ki,  whose  date  must  be  about  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Christian  era.     It  has  ever  since  been  regarded  as  a  classic  or  King.     The 
history  of  its  growth  is  given  by  Pauthier,  from  Pan-kou,  in  the  Journal  Asiatique  (Septem- 
ber and  October,  1867);  see  also  Mtmoires  cone,  les  Ckinois,  II.  71-73;  Schott,  Entwurf, 
&c.,p.  17;  and  Plath,  Bay  Ak.  Jan.  1870.    It  has  been  translated  into  French  by  Gallery  (Turin, 
1853),  who  studied  and  spoke  Chinese  for  twenty  years,  passing  a  long  period  as  missionary  in 
that  country.     He  thinks  the   Li-ki  "  the  most  complete  monograph  that  the  Chinese  have 
given  to  the  world."     Plath  calls  it  "the  most  important  of  the  old  institutes."    Williams 
thinks  "  it  has  had  more  effect  than  any  other  work  on  Chinese  life." 

2  Li-ki,  ch.  viii. 


2l8  STRUCTURES. 

called  "divine  right"  of  kings,  or  peoples,  to  the  freedom 
of  nature.  Its  inmost  being  is  identical  with  that  of  man 
himself. 

"  Man  emanates  (for  moral  part)  from  the  virtue  of  Heaven  and 
Earth  ;  (for  physical)  from  the  union  of  the  two  principles  Yn  and 
Yang ;  (for  spiritual)  from  the  union  of  spirits  and  gods  ;  (for  his 
proper  form)  from  the  subtlest  essence  of  the  five  elements."  * 

"  Rites  must  be  in  harmony  with  the  seasons,  related  with  the  pro- 
ductions of  the  earth,  and  accordant  with  the  sentiment  of  man  ;  treat- 
ing all  things  according  to  their  special  nature."  z 

Their  symbolism,  then,  does  not  follow  arbitrary  beliefs, 
but  the  order  of  the  universe.  It  is  the  record  of  an  im- 
memorial moral  loyalty,  an  organized  conviction  ;  and  the 
Li-ki  devotes  much  space  to  the  physical  and  moral  signifi- 
cance of  each  observance,  —  such  as  attitudes  towards  the 
quarters  of  heaven,  gradations  according  to  age  at  feasts, 
archery,  the  use  of  jade,  the  marriage  rite.3  Thus,  "tak- 
ing the  virile  hat "  is  the  "  beginning  of  rites  ;  "  since 

"  It  is  not  till  filial  piety,  fraternal  regard,  fidelity,  and  loyalty  are 
well  established,  that  one  is  truly  a  man  :  and  only  when  he  is  a  man 
can  he  govern  others."  4 

"  Confucius  said,  '  Why  should  I  speak  so  confidently  (about  rites)  ? 
Because  I  know  perfectly  the  way  of  acting  suitable  to  each  enter- 
prise.' "  s 

"  Rites  are  ways  of  regulating  things  :  the  wise  has  always  a  way 
for  all  things  in  life  ;  the  wise  does  nothing  without  rule."  6 

"  Without  rites,  virtue  and  justice  are  not  perfect,  nor  is  education 
in  manners  complete.  Nothing  is  sincere  or  grave  in  prayers,  sacri- 
fices, worship  of  gods  or  spirits,  without  observing  them."  7 

"  By  rites,  nearness  or  distance  of  relationship  appears  ;  doubts  are 
solved  ;  true  and  false  set  in  clear  light."  8 

Thus  their  morality  is  not  formal  only,  but  real. 

"  To  practise  rites  without  justice  as  basis,  is  to  labor  and  not 
plant."  9 

1  Li-ki,  ch.  viii.  *  Li-ki,  ch.  ix.  s  Ibid.,  chs.  ix.,  x.,  xvi.,  xxx.-xxxv. 

*  Ibid.,  ch.  xxx.  B  Ibid.,  ch.  ix.  6  Ibid.,  ch.  xxiii. 

7  Ibid.,  ch.  i.  »  Ibid.  »  Ibid.,  ch.  viii. 


EDUCATION. 


2I9 


"Think  you  that  to  prepare  tables,  offer  wine,  or  drink  health  is  to 
be  called  a  rite  ;  that  to  march  about  with  staves,  striking  bells  and 
drums,  is  to  make  music  ?  To  speak,  and  (then)  act  accordingly,  that 
is  ritual  ;  to  act  and  find  joy  therein,  that  is  music." l 

"  Confucius  said,  *  Return  we  to  ourselves.'  The  wise  has  no  need 
of  affectation  to  appear  modest,  nor  of  severity  to  appear  grave  ;  nor  of 
speech  to  inspire  respect ...  He  will  blush  to  have'  speech  without  the 
virtues  that  correspond  to  it,  or  to  have  these  virtues  without  putting 
them  in  practice.  It  is  for  this  reason,  that  when  he  is  clothed  with  a 
mourning  dress  he  looks  sad  ;  and  when  he  wears  the  helmet  he  has 
the  air  of  one  whom  it  will  not  do  to  offend."  2 

The  highest  morality  is  spoken  of  in  direct  line  with  the 
observance  of  rites,  as  if  they  were  but  the  reverse  side  of 
the  same  ideal. 

•*  Wen-tze,  Minister  of  T'sin,  had  a  modesty  which  made  him  assume 
a  bended  attitude,  as  if  wanting  strength  to  hold  up  his  dress.  His 
words  were  measured,  as  if  he  was  tongue-tied.  He  raised  more  than 
seventy  persons  to  high  office  in  finance,  yet  in  his  whole  life  he  never 
took  a  bribe."  8 

"  Compose  your  exterior  ;  listen  with  respect.  Do  not  appropriate 
the  sayings  of  others,  nor  blindly  accept  all  you  hear.  These  the  wise 
maxims  of  our  oldest  kings."  4 

"  The  Prince  must  respect  the  old  ;  he  must  remain  outside  his 
chariot  till  he  has  passed  where  the  great  dignitaries  sit."  6 

Respect  for  the  lowly  and  for  teachers,  care  for  comfort 
of  the  poor  and  of  colonists,  and  for  the  rights  of  farmers 
to  rest  from  government-work  in  hard  seasons,  filial  piety 
and  well-ordered  feasts  for  old  men,  speaking  truth  and 
making  peace,  —  are  prescribed  in  this  Book  of  Ceremonies 
as  the  ritual  of  royalty. 

"  A  good  emperor  uses  the  justice  and  order  established  by  the  rites 
to  rule  human  passions."  6 

So  the  sage's  composure  is  simply  the  air  natural  to  his 
self-respect. 

1  Li-ki,  ch.  xxiii.  2  Ibid.,  ch.  xxvi.  8  Ibid.,  ch.  iv. 

<  Ibid.,  ch.  i.  6  Ibid.  8  Ibid.,  ch.  viii. 


22O  STRUCTURES. 

"  The  wise  man  carries  an  empty  thing  with  the  same  calm  move- 
ment as  if  it  were  full  ;  enters  a  place  where  no  one  is  with  the  same 
gravity  as  if  there  were  people  there."  l 

A  part  of  his  ceremonial  is  independence. 

"  A  sage  has  said,  *  A  great  virtue  is  not  absorbed  by  a  single  pub- 
lic office  ;  a  great  capacity  should  not  be  limited  like  a  utensil ;  nor  a 
great  loyalty  be  bound  down  to  terms  of  contract ;  nor  a  great  epoch  to 
such  and  such  seasons  and  events."  2 

"  The  wise  respects  all  men,  but  most  himself  ;  obeying  the  measure 
and  limits  of  right." 

"  What  is  it  to  attain  perfection  of  the  person  ?  Nothing  else  than 
to  maintain  one's  self  in  duty."  3 

Education  itself  is  reduced  in  the  Li-ki  to  so  definite  a 
system  of  rules,  that  it  seems  to  fall  fairly  enough 
within  the  scope  of  a  "  Memorial  of  Rites."     But 
and  pupil.    these  rules  have  a  natural  basis. 

"  All  study  should  be  directed  towards  learning  what  properly  be- 
longs to  the  function  one  is  to  fulfil :  if  it  is  letters,  the  true  prepara- 
tion is  no  other  than  virtue."  "  Of  old,  examination  was  made  the 
first  year  to  discover  the  amount  of  intelligence  in  the  pupil ;  the 
third  year,  to  learn  what  occupation  he  enjoyed  and  what  company  he 
liked  ;  the  seventh,  if  he  could  discuss  what  he  had  learned,  and  who 
were  his  friends,  —  this  secured  a  lower  grade  of  rank  ;  the  ninth 
year  his  knowledge  of  relations,  his  insight,  and  the  firmness  of  his 
principles  were  tested,  and  this  opened  the  higher  grade."  "  Young 
pupils  must  be  taught  to  listen,  but  not  ask  questions  beyond  their 
stage,  nor  jump  from  class  to  class  :  the  teacher  can  vary  methods 
according  to  capacity,  and  the  ability  to  do  this  wisely  makes  the  good 
teacher,  who  is  equally  fit  to  be  a  ruler,  since  the  wisdom  required 
for  both  functions  is  the  same."  "  In  higher  schools  the  great  art  is 
to  prevent  vices  not  yet  apparent,  by  seizing  the  proper  moment  and 
profiting  by  time  :  the  true  stimulants  are  to  restrain  over-haste  in 
passing  from  grade  to  grade,  and  to  let  the  pupils  note  each  other's 
progress."  4 

On  these  generalities  are  based  the  Rites  of  Instruction, 
whence  is  deduced  a  truth,  still  unappreciated,  even  in  our 

1  Li-kty  ch.  xiv.  z  Ibid.,  ch.  xv. 

8  Ibid.,  ch.  xxii.  *  Ibid.,  ch.  xv. 


EDUCATION.  221 

own  school  systems,  that  the  choice  of  teachers  cannot  be 
too  carefully  made  nor  the  function  too  highly  honored. 
A  prince's  deference  to  his  teacher  is  homage  to  virtue, 
and  the  people  are  taught  to  respect  study.  In  two  cases, 
as  to  the  treatment  due  the  representative  of  ancestors  in 
religious  rites,  and  the  teacher  in  the  exercise  of  his 
function,  the  prince  should  not  act  towards  men  as  sub- 
jects.1 To  teachers  certain  forms  of  etiquette  at  court 
are  remitted. 

Religious  rites  are  founded  in  the  same  respect  for  moral 
laws. 

"  Only  a  man  of  eminent  virtue  can  properly  sacrifice  to  the  Su- 
preme ;  only  the  pious  son  to  his  parents."  2 

"Sacrifices  are  for  him  who  has  made  good  laws  ;  to  him  who  has 
suffered  through  his  zeal  for  the  public  good  ;  to  him  who  has  borne 
much  toil  in  giving  peace  to  the  Empire ;  to  him  who  has  prevented  a 
great  calamity."  3 

"  The  pious  son  walks  to  the  sacrificial  rite  with  timid  air,  as  fear- 
ing his  filial  love  is  not  great  enough.  In  the  libation  he  bends  his 
body  as  if  he  would  speak  to  his  parents,  and  drives  away  all  wander- 
ing thoughts.  After  sacrifice  he  moves  away  slowly,  not  suffering  his 
eyes  and  ears  to  stray  from  his  heart,  nor  his  thought  from  his  father 
and  mother.  Respect  and  love  must  show  themselves  in  all  his  per- 
son."4 

We  do  not  enter  into  the  details  of  ceremonial  forms, 
because  it  is  more  important  to  vindicate  the  prin- 
ciple of  moral  fitness  and  natural  order  on  which   Educated 

in  mutual 

they  are  based  in  the  national  mind.      However  respect. 
childish  and  commonplace  these  minute  prescrip- 
tions   may  appear   to    us,    they   are    its    direct    inference 
from  this   principle,  and   are  accepted   as  absolute   types 
of  the  allegiance  of  mankind  to  this  law.     Many  of  them, 
as  in  instances  already  given,  really  approach  that  value  ; 
and,  notwithstanding  the  pettiness  and  formalism  involved 

1  Li-ki,  ch.  xv.  2  Ibid.,  ch.  xix. 

8  Ibid.,  ch.  xviii.  *  Ibid.,  ch.  xix. 


222  STRUCTURES. 

in  all  ritual  performance,  must  serve  to  educate  a  delicate 
mutual  consideration  and  social  respect, — the  absence  of 
which  is  poorly  compensated  by  any  form  of  "  liberty  "  that 
recognizes  no  law  of  manners  beyond  individual  caprice. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  the  Rites.  It  is  best  in- 
Distinction  dicated  by  those  passages  in  the  Li-ki  which  point 
riteHnd  out  the  distinction  between  Rites  and  Music,  the 
music.  third  great  element  of  Chinese  education. 

"  Music  makes  unity  in  the  sentiments  ;  rites  establish  distinctions 
between  classes  of  persons:  unity  produces  affection;  differences, 
respect ;  — in  rites  the  noble  are  distinguished  from  the  common,  but 
in  music  accord  is  effected  between  them.  Music  has  harmony,  like 
that  which  exists  between  heaven  and  earth  ;  rites  have  gradations 
similar  to  those  which  exist  between  different  beings  therein.  All 
beings  having  different  modes  of  existence,  rites  were  instituted.  The 
unceasing  mutual  movement  of  heaven  and  earth  gives  birth  to  all 
things;  hence  springs  music.  Related  to  music  is  humanity;  related 
to  rites  is  justice.  Music  answers  to  heaven,  rites  to  earth.  When 
both  are  rightly  combined,  heaven  and  earth  move  perfectly,  all  things 
grow,  and  all  creatures  are  blest."  l 

This  definition  seems  to  point  to  the  ceremonial  as  a 
means  of  maintaining  social  subordinations  :  the  differ- 
entiating element  in  nature,  human  as  well  as  cosmical, 
finds  expression  in  its  forms  of  obeisance.  But  we  must 
mark  the  immense  difference  in  meaning  from  the  corre- 
sponding Hindu  principle  of  castes,  or  the  fixed  hereditary 
classes  of  feudalism.  China  recognizes  neither  of  these. 
From  the  palace  to  the  hovel  the  doors  stand  open,  and 
there  are  no  essential  distinctions  between  men.  But  the 
son  of  Han  believes  in  the  sacredness  of  social  organiza- 
tion, and  in  the  permanence  of  those  distinctive  functions 
which  are  founded  on  natural  relations  and  on  the  theory 
of  civil  and  political  life.  And  it  is  these  differences  of 
function,  —  not  claims  of  persons  and  permanent  classes, 
—  that  rites  are  supposed  to  maintain  in  their  integrity. 

1  Li-ki,  ch.  xvi. 


EDUCATION.  223 

Music  is  the  complement  of  rites,1  based  on  harmonies 
as  they  are  on  diversities,  —  representing  humanity  as  they 
represent  justice.  It  should  seem,  therefore,  to  be  more 
fundamental,  as  unity  is  more  essential  than  differences. 
In  fact  the  Li-ki  expressly  declares  that 

"  Rites  are  from  without,  music  from  within.  As  rites  hold  the 
place  of  finite  beings,  so  music  holds  the  place  of  the  great  Principle 
of  all  things  (Tai-ki),  in  knowing  which  the  knowledge  of  rites  is 
involved."  2 

"  Both  possessed  together  constitute  virtue,  —  which  means  pos- 
session, and  gives  power  to  do  all  things  without  effort."8 

We  have  here  a  Chinese  expression  for  the  freedom  of 
one  whose  faith  and  works  are  from  one  root. 

For  this  prosaic  people,  also,  music  is  the  world  of  the 
ideal.     "  Only  the  wise  comprehends  it."  4     It  sig- 
nifies the  power  of  sentiment,  the  inward  mystic  Chinese 
force  that  blends  all  differences  of  outward  rela-  music. 
tion  in  a   common   humanity.      This   is    the   sub- 
stance of  the  Memorial   Chapter  of  the  Li-ki,  devoted  to 
the  subject.     "  Rites  are  justice  ;  music  is  humanity."     As 
with  the  Greeks,  so  here  it  played  a  large  part  in  the  theory 
of  education,  —  especially  as  the  divine  method  of  harmo- 
nizing passions  and  guiding  the  whole  emotional  nature  ; 
and  to  this  end  the  airs  suited  for  different  moral  effects 
were  not  only  carefully  distinguished,  but,  as  in  the  Tcheou- 
li,5  subdivided  with  a  characteristic  minuteness  that  could 
have  had  but  little  bearing  on  actual  life.     The  virtues  thus 
made  dependent  on  music  are  those  which  make  the  Chi- 
nese ideal,  —  observing  the  just  mean,  concord,  veneration 
for   spirits,  respect   for  superiors,    filial   love,  and    friend- 
ship.   Modes  of  musical  conversation  ;  musical  dances,  with 
strange   barbaric  titles  ;    the  six  perfect    (Yang)    and  six 

1  Commentary  to  Tcheou-li,  B.  xvni.,  44.  2  Li-ki,  ch.  xvi. 

8  Ibid.     So  the  Tcheou-li,  B.  xviii.  ;  see  Comment  on  Sect.  43  and  44. 
4  Li-ki,  ch.  xvi.  6  Tcheou-li,  B.  xxn. 


224  STRUCTURES. 

imperfect  (Yin)  tones ;  the  eight  sounds  produced  by  va- 
rious substances  ;  the  nine  grand  airs  suited  for  bringing 
man  into  close  relations  with  spirits,  with  animals,  and 
stars,  so  as,  Orpheus-like,  to  move  their  powers  ;  and  the 
styles  suited  for  saluting  the  different  seasons,  for  the 
feasts  of  old  men  and  husbandmen,  for  great  public  occa- 
sions of  all  kinds,  —  all  under  the  supervision  of  the  Court 
Minister  of  Musical  Instruction," —  make  up  the  extraordi- 
nary picture  of  music  which  the  unknown  authors  of  the 
Tcheou-li J  have  constructed  to  match  some  national  idea, 
which  it  is  impossible  to  verify  as  historical  institution. 
The  representation  is,  however,  interesting,  as  a  sign  of 
the  earnestness  with  which  the  idea  of  harmony  as  a 
human  force  was  traced  through  every  realm  of  nature 
and  society. 

"  The  ancients  were  ashamed  of  the  disorderly  expression  of  joy  ; 
hence  chants  were  devised  to  regulate  it,  so  as  in  different  ways  to 
move  the  human  heart  to  good."  '2 

The  Li-ki  traces  the  relations  of  music  to  bodily  evolu- 
tions ;  and  Confucius  explains  its  effects  by  defining  it  as 
an  "image  of  actions  and.events." 

The  inevitable  want  of  spontaneity  and  moral  energy 
is  less  apparent  in  the  Chinese  ceremonial,  on  ac- 
.  count  of  these  relations  to  essential  morality.  The 
tone  of  education,  of  which  it  forms  so  important 
an  element,  is,  nevertheless,  as  we  all  know,  to  the  last  de- 
gree pedagogic.  This  matter-of-fact  race  moves  in  ruts  of 
predetermined  purpose.  Their  ideal  is  a  disciplined  con- 
formity to  precept.  Reaction  of  the  mind  on  the  materials 
given  it,  reconstruction  of  the  past  in  the  light  of  fresh 
experience,  and  sense  of  creative  force,  are  unprovided  for 
Result  of  in  the  system.  Patriarchalism  does  not  contem- 
piriT  plate  emancipation  from  parental  care,  in  this  life 
or  in  another.  Thus  its  idea  of  a  teacher  is  not  of 

1  Tcheou-li,  Bb.  xxn.  and  xxiii.  *  Li-ki,  ch.  xvi. 


EDUCATION.  225 

one  who  brings  forth  true  manhood  from  the  child  by  right 
suggestion,  but  of  a  providence  that  feeds  him  with 
infusions  duly  prepared  ;  just  as  its  idea  of  a  ruler  is 
that  of  a  protector.  Government  is  defined  as  "  providing 
for  the  wants  of  the  people  without  indifference  or  neglect, 
tracing  for  each  person  his  duties,  according  to  position, 
and  not  needlessly  multiplying  his  obligations."  The  peo- 
ple, though  of  supreme  dignity,  are  for  ever  a  little  child. 

State  and  school  alike  represent  the  effort  to  meet  man's 
need  of   conformity  to  a  higher  law  than  private 

Chinese 

fancy,  caprice,  or  power ;  but  without  recognition  education 
of  the  equal  necessity  for  personal  liberty  to  test,  ™<j^^s 
doubt,  choose,  as  to  the  special  mode  of  fulfilling  laws  be- 
such  higher  law.    This  liberty,  which  is  man's  edu-  y°ndP"- 

J  '  vate  will. 

cation  in  the  meaning  of  duty,  is  buried  under  reit- 
erated maxims  of  antiquity,  assumed  to  carry  this  meaning 
with  them  in  its  perfected  state.  All  possible  cases  being 
settled  by  rule  beforehand,  a  deliberate  appeal  to  reason 
in  unlooked-for  emergencies  becomes  impossible,  and  the 
plodding  routine  is  vexed  by  any  sudden  violation  into 
helpless  panic,  and  even  a  kind  of  madness  ;  whence  the 
violent  outbreaks  that  surprise  us  in  so  peace-loving  a  race. 
But  the  suppression  of  spontaneity  by  these  perpetual 
didactics  is  even  worse  than  the  suppression  of  deliberate 
search  and  choice.  The  vitality  of  the  moral  sense  depends 
on  impulse  and  direction  from  within.  How  much  more 
readily  we  spring  to  a  duty  that  is  conceived  by  ourselves 
or  only  hinted  by  another,  than  to  one  that  is  stated  and 
prescribed  !  It  would  not  be  strange  if  the  Chinese  were 
specially  deficient  in  the  very  virtues  most  forced  on  the 
jaded  attention  by  rote-and-task  work.  It  is  not  in  China 
only  that  ears  grow  dull  to  precepts,  and  limbs  are  hardened 
against  the  goads  of  law  and  gospel.  Even  in  China,  were 
there  no  reaction,  that  great  civilization  could  not  have 
endured.  Elsewhere  the  protest  is  more  trenchant.  The 

15 


226  STRUCTURES. 

most  cherished  systems,  the  highest  names,  having  become 
prescriptive  ideals  enforced  by  organization,  routine,  text, 
are  giving  way  to  new  types  and  symbols,  simply  because  we 
demand  fresh  associations  that  time  and  authority  have  not 
spoiled.  Such  spiritual  life  as  is  not  paralyzed  by  their 
incessant  repetition  forsakes  them,  and  no  galvanic  shocks 
nor  rallying  slaps  can  make  the  dead  body  live.  For 
heathen,  Jew,  Christian,  the  same  law  of  character  holds. 
Old  rituals  and  symbols  must  give  place  to  new  gospels. 
In  Church,  State,  School,  incessant  blast  of  law  and  text 
suppresses  the  natural  heat,  or  else  drives  it  to  reaction 
against  their  mechanism,  —  which  is  of  course  the  only 
result  consistent  with  health. 

The  schools  of  America  and  of  China  alike  demonstrate 
that  the  danger  of  doing  too  much  is  quite  equal  to 
^  doing  too  little,  in  the  way  of  instruction. 


ing  in  the  Our  science  has  broken  up  much  traditional  routine, 
WwtaHke.  and  its  stimulus  to  freedom  can  hardly  be  overrated. 
But  science  is  as  perilous  a  master  in  education 
as  any  other.  The  inconceivable  heaps  of  detail  and  phrase- 
ology, the  rote-work  of  rapid  processes  assumed  to  be  the 
best  because  rapid,  the  applied  mechanism  of  culture  aiming 
at  effective  exhibition,  as  seen  in  drill  and  concerted  per- 
formances, reduce  the  reading,  writing,  speaking,  thinking 
in  our  public  schools  to  a  set  of  uniformities,  as  destructive 
of  individual  genius  as  the  old  jejune  Chinese  routines. 
The  importance  of  the  idea  justifies  repeated  reference. 
In  the  plethora  of  knowledge,  as  well  as  its  poverty,  lurks 
the  old  snare  of  patriarchalism.  There  is  the  same  attempt 
to  read  into  the  child's  mind  the  accumulated  wisdom  of 
maturity,  while  leaving  no  room  for  the  play  of  his  own 
faculties.  Here  the  same  tyranny  of  method  folds  him, 
with  ancestral  care,  in  a  rigid  machinery  of  discipline,  in 
the  interest  of  educational  and  social  economies. 


EDUCATION.  227 

Rules  must  be  imparted  ;  but  the  passion  for  imparting 
rules  is  the  bane  of  education.     Schools  must  have 
organization  ;    but   the  sacrifice  of  personality  to  The  P^- 
organization  is  the  return  to  barbarism.    The  child  formulas, 
must  learn  the  laws  of  Nature  ;  but  let  him  model 
its  forms  with  his   own  hands,  and  feel  the  sense  of  dis- 
covery, and  even  creativity,  whenever  he  learns  a  law.     A 
pure  conformity  to  laws,  felt  as  producing  truth  and  beauty 
under  one's  own  self-conscious  will,  is  the  inspiration  of 
culture  ;  but  it  is   the  feeling  that  makes  this  conformity 
to  be  life  rather  than  death. 

The  didactics  of  a  theology  that  repudiates  nature  would 
have  proved  at  least  as  suppressive  of  freedom  and 
progress  in  Europe,  as  the  didactics  of  a  natural 


morality  embodied   in    educational    routines  have  capes  ex- 
been  in  China,  but  for  the  secular  influences  of  fu-  didactics, 
sion  among  bold,  ardent,  and  enterprising  races  in 
love  not  with  the  old  but  with  the  new.    The  long  reign  and 
development  of  Christian  dogma  made  indispensable  an 
emancipation  of  European  thought  ;  which  came  by  trade 
and    science,   and    the   renaissance    of    classical    culture. 
Science    itself   is  subjecting  us  to  the  perils  of   a  peda- 
gogic phase,  as  prescriptive  religion  has  already  done.    But 
for   East  and   West   alike,   great   contrasts   and   contacts 
of    differing    civilizations,   with    revolutions    in    religious 
thought,    prepare   the   antidote,    whose   scope  will   be   as 
wide  as  its  process  is  effective. 

The  Chinese  will  wonder  at  our  assumptions  and  rou- 
tines as  we  at  theirs,  and  the  revelation  of  dangers 

JMutUcil 

and  duties  will  perhaps   be    mutual.     Meanwhile,  help  of  the 
we  may  profitably   notice  the   entire   absence   of  ^t™c 
theological  exclusiveness,  and   even   dogma,  from 
the  Chinese  school  system.    Education  is  as  secular  as  pos- 
sible ;  and  those  controversies  are  escaped  which  concern 
not  the  essence  of  morality  or  religion,  but  the  authority  of 


228  STRUCTURES. 

supernatural  dogmas,  persons,  and  books.  Instruction  in 
China  was  never  in  the  hands  of  monks  or  priests.  As 
the  only  pure  example  of  secular  education  on  a  great  scale, 
it  deserves  our  close  examination. 


Chinese  culture  is  a  process  of  evolution,  whose  germs 
are  in  the  town  and  village  schools,  and  expand 

The  com- 

petitive  into  detailed  adaptations  to  public  wants  through 
tiemT"1*"  a  £raded  series  of  competitive  examinations  ;  the 
ultimate  point  being  the  supply  of  civil  and  politi- 
cal administrative  force.  This  is  the  motive  power  of  the 
process.  Its  severe  tests  are  a  constant  sifting  of  faculty 
under  the  law  of  "  survival  of  the  fittest  ;  "  and  the  limited 
number  of  public  functions,  compared  with  the  number  of 
competitors  in  these  examinations,  makes  them  a  fair  illus- 
tration of  the  laws  of  "natural  selection."  It  is  thus  a  kind 
of  applied  Darwinism,  in  which  Chinese  "  immobility  "  sup- 
plies the  place  of  the  immutabilities  of  Nature.  Whatever 
its  defects,  it  is  a  singularly  original  and  profound  concep- 
tion of  the  Chinese  mind,  and  one  of  the  greatest  contri- 
butions to  the  philosophy  of  education  in  human  history. 
It  elevates  the  school  to  the  place  of  chief  corner-stone  in 
civilization,  makes  popular  culture  the  basis  of  government, 
and  carefully  tested  fitness  the  ground  of  official  position. 
No  pains  have  been  spared  to  make  this  process  of  selection 
thorough,  and  even  to  utilize  the  failure  of  individuals  to 
meet  its  tests.  Its  principle  of  securing  the  best  men  for 
public  office,  so  elaborately  wrought  out,  is  the  grand  justi- 
fication of  our  third  main  element  in  Chinese  character,  — 
its  minute  fidelity  to  the  conditions  of  right  work. 

Of  this  most  interesting  system,  brought  substantially  to 
its  present  form  during  the  period  between  the  eighth  and 
twelfth  centuries,1  we  shall  now  sketch  the  main  features. 

1  Neumann,  Lehrsaal  d.  MittelreicJies,  p.  6. 


EDUCATION.  229 

I.  The  bachelor's  degree,  Sin-tsai  (Flowering  Talents), 
is  the  reward   of  success  in    three    examinations, 

...  ...  ..  P  The  three 

held  annually  in  the  district  capitals,  after  pre-  Degrees, 
liminary  visitation  of  the  schools  by  officials  who 
prepare  and  pass  up  lists  of  candidates.  It  is  conferred  by 
the  literary  chancellor  of  the  province,  who  is  usually  a 
member  of  the  Han-lin,  or  of  a  governmental  Board  at 
Pe-king.1  The  perquisites  of  this  degree  are  a  certain  posi- 
tion and  badge,  immunity  from  corporeal  punishment  and 
right  of  trial  for  offences  by  a  literary  tribunal  ;  but  its 
chief  value  for  the  aspirant  to  public  life  is  that  it  qualifies 
him  to  be  a  candidate  for  the  second  degree.  The  impris- 
oned competitors  write  essays  on  themes  appointed  by  the 
chancellor,  and  but  few  reach  the  bachelorship  awarded 
for  the  best  handwriting  and  style.  The  standard  is  kept 
at  a  level  by  limiting  the  number  of  diplomas  obtainable  in 
each  district.2 

II.  The  next  stage  is  the  rank  of  Kti-jin  (Promoted  Men), 
conferred  on  success  at  triennial  examinations  held  in  the 
provincial  capitals  before  two  imperial  commissioners,  and 
simultaneously  in  all.     The  occasion   corresponds   to  our 
election  days  in  its  national  character,  exciting  trie  highest 
interest,  and  concentrating  personal  and  patriotic  feeling. 
Crowded  cities   testify  eager  sympathy  with  the  competi- 
tion, which  has  so  direct  a  bearing  on  the  future  of  the 
whole   community.     The    number   of   candidates   in    each 
province  will  average  six  or  seven  thousand,  and  sometimes 
amounts  to  thrice  that  number.3     The  trial  lasts  nine  days, 
proving  at  once  the  earnestness  of  the  system  and  the  tre- 
mendous forces  of  competition  when  organized  on  a  national 
scale.    It  is  by  far  the  severest  of  the  three  trials  for  literary 
honors.    The  harshness  of  its  solitary  confinement  day  and 
night  within  narrow  cells,  exposed  to  wind  and  rain  with- 
out  a   single   article  of   comfort,    and  its  intense  mental 

1  Doolittle,  I.  ch.  xv.  ;  Williams,  I.  437.          2  Doolittle,  I.  352.          8  Brine,  p.  21. 


23O  STRUCTURES. 

concentration,  especially  on  the  memory,  resemble  the 
asceticism  of  Hindu  or  Christian  monks,  —  a  literary  as 
theirs  was  a  religious  enthusiasm,  —  and  result  in  frequent 
cases  of  exhaustion,  paralysis,  and  death,  especially  among 
the  old.1  As  monachism  was  mostly  the  creature  of  an 
ecclesiastical  police,  so  this  competitive  system  is  under  the 
strict  watch  of  officials,  who  search  the  candidate  when  he 
enters  his  cell,  see  that  he  does  not  leave  it  on  any  pre- 
tence, and  bring  out  the  victims,  if  such  there  should  be,  for 
their  friends  to  carry  away.  All  ages,  as  well  as  ranks, 
participate  in  the  intellectual  struggle.  Dr.  Martin  men- 
tions a  list  of  ninety-nine  successful  competitors,  in  which 
sixteen  were  over  forty  years  of  age,  one  was  sixty-two, 
and  another  eighty-three  !  2  The  successful  cannot  num- 
ber more  than  a  tenth  of  the  whole,  and  disappointment  at 
failure  often  ends  in  suicide.  Proclamations  and  military 
salutes  greet  the  victors  ;  runners  and  carrier-doves  are  in 
waiting,  and  boatmen  lie  on  their  oars,  ready  to  compete 
for  the  rewards  of  spreading  the  news  of  their  success. 
Like  the  Greek  athletes,  these  more  peaceful  conquerors 
are  honored  with  olive  boughs  borne  in  procession  by 
boys.  Thanksgivings  are  paid  to  Heaven  and  Earth,  an- 
cestors blessed,  and  living  relatives  put  on  festive  robes.3 
Of  these  licentiates,  1,300  to  2,000  are  created  triennially. 

III.  A  triennial  examination  of  Kn-jin  confers  the  mas- 
ter's degree  of  tsin-tsze.  This  diploma,  awarded  in  larger 
proportion  to  the  number  of  candidates  than  the  rest,  se- 
cures introduction  to  the  Emperor,  and  the  three  highest  on 
the  list  receive  special  official  rewards  at  his  hand.4  From 
150  to  400  members  of  this  literary  knighthood  are  created 
every  three  years.  Many  are  selected  for  special  functions 
or  tasks  desired  by  the  State  ;  and  most  receive  district  or 

1  Meadows' s  Chinese  and  their  Rebellions,  pp.  405-6;  Lockhart,  Med.  Miss,  in  China, 
p.  16. 

z  Article  on  Chin.  Camlet.  Examinations  (N.  A  .  Rev.  1870). 
8  Doolittle,  I.  413,  414.  4  Williams,  I.  445. 


EDUCATION.  231 

provincial  offices,  distributed  by  lot.    The  examination  lasts 
thirteen  days,1  and  is  conducted  by  the  highest  officials. 

Finally,  the  tsin-tsze  compete  for  admission  into  the  Im- 
perial Academy,  the  highest  literary  body  in  the 
State ;  whose  labors  are  pursued  under  the  direct  ™e  Han" 
supervision  of  the  Emperor,  and  represent  that 
supremacy  of  literary  culture  among  the  elements  of  na- 
tional life,  on  which  Chinese  civilization  rests.  The  Han- 
lin,  or  "  Forest  of  Pencils,"  received  its  name  from  the 
employment  of  a  host  of  scribes  in  the  transcription  of 
books,  by  the  emperor  Tai-tsung  of  the  T'ang  dynasty, 
1,200  years  ago,  before  the  invention  of  printing  ;  constitut- 
ing but  a  portion  of  the  tasks  assigned  by  this  scholarly  and 
liberal  prince  to  his  ablest  literati,  of  which  this  Academy 
was  the  result.2  Its  members  are  the  national  historians, 
poets,  translators,  and  commentators  ;  encyclopedists,  lexi- 
cographers, compilers  on  a  great  scale.  They  frame  docu- 
ments for  public  uses,  patents,  titles,  addresses,  and  prayers, 
inscriptions  on  state  seals  and  on  public  monuments.  They 
are  the  Emperor's  councillors,  censors,  recorders  of  his  daily 
doings,  and  assistants  at  his  studies,  reading  and  expound- 
ing the  classical  writings  ;  high  examiners  in  the  provinces, 
publishers  of  the  best  essays  there  produced,  and  general 
managers  of  education.  All  their  functions  are,  however, 
under  supreme  direction  ;  and  their  numerous  branches, 
composed  of  Manchu  and  Chinese  in  about  equal  propor- 
tions, are  organized  with  much  care  for  the  purposes  of 
national  centralization.  A  place  in  this  literary  House  of 
Peers,  whose  active  members  number  but  about  seventy,  is 
of  course  the  highest  goal  of  personal  ambition,  especially 
as  it  is  a  result  of  open  competition,  and  the  reward  of  real 
ability.  The  examination  is  triennial,  and  held  in  the 
palace  in  presence  of  the  highest  personages  of  the  realm.3 

1  Plath.  2  Martin,  N.  A.  Rev.  1874;   Bazin,  Journ.  Asiat.,  January,  1858. 

»  Ibid. 


232  STRUCTURES. 

The  culmination  of  this  pyramid  of  national  endeavor  is 
Theiau-  tne  choice,  every  third  year,  of  a  literary  laureate, 
reate.  the  symbolic  glory  and  crown  of  the  Confucian 
institutions,  who  receives  honors  second  only  to  those  of 
imperial  dignity  itself. 

We  complete  the  picture  of  competitive  culture  when  we 
add  the  trials  in  archery,  horsemanship,  and  strength  intro- 
duced by  the  present  dynasty  among  the  imperial  troops. 
They  are  of  a  very  primitive  character,  and  imply  no  sys- 
tematic military  education  whatever.1 

Of  the  scope  of  studies  comprehended  in  these  examina- 
tions we  may  at  least  say  that  the  term  literature 
The  ma-  is  coextensive  with  the  objects  of  public  spheres 
study0  and  functions.  The  themes  of  the  common-school 
programme  are  taken  from  the  Confucian  books. 
The  main  object  being  to  learn  how  to  write  and  compose, 
the  first  reward  is  given  to  the  best  essayists  on  matters 
suggested  by  the  study  of  these  works,  which  illustrate  in  a 
great  variety  of  ways  the  duties  and  opportunities  of  the 
State.  There  is  but  little  teaching  in  branches  of  special 
science  outside  these  and  other  similar  compends  of  moral 
and  historical  principles.  The  arts  and  sciences  are  taught 
in  China  only  in  their  actual  manipulation,  on  which  the 
youth  enters  without  preliminaries.  Their  principles  are 
studied  only  in  the  concrete  process.  But  if  the  old  adage 
be  true,  that  "  he  who  knows  the  powers  of  ten  thousand 
written  characters  is  qualified  for  the  degree  of  bachelor," 
the  task  of  attaining  this  honor  will  certainly  bear  com- 
parison with  the  labors  of  students  in  the  lower  schools  of 
other  countries.  It  must  bring  training  to  the  eye  and 
to  the  memory,  and  enforce  the  association  of  forms  with 
facts,  of  names  with  things. 

1  Williams,  I.  446;  Doolittle,  I.  ch.  xvi.  ;  Chittese  Repos.,  1835;  Plath,  Schule  und 
Unterricht  \\\Alt.  China  (Bayer.  Akad.,  Juli,  1868). 


EDUCATION. 

^v         X/"/.  H 

At  the  higher  schools  a  broader  range  is  taken^  a^^T  the 
examination  for  licentiates  adds  the  Five  Kings  (or  Sacfech  * 
Classics)  and  their  commentaries,  embracing  the  whole  /*y 
substance  of  Chinese  thought  in  all  times.1  The  scholars 
are  invited  to  show  all  they  know  on  astronomy,  topog- 
raphy, the  political  divisions  of  the  Empire  and  the  history 
of  changes  therein,  as  well  as  on  questions  of  literary  criti- 
cism and  the  schools  of  commentators ;  on  the  treasures  of 
the  libraries,  their  collection  and  destruction  ;  on  the  his- 
tory of  military  rules,  hydraulic  and  agricultural  achieve- 
ments, and  the  currency.2  Penmanship  figures  at  the  end, 
as  at  the  beginning,  of  the  series. 

The  length  of  time  and  mass  of  literary  records  covered 
by  these  questions  demand  of  the  essayist  great 
research.     The  critical  faculty  is  brought  into  ex-  ^J^*0" 
ercise,  and  within  the  limits  set  by  Chinese  rever-  brought 
ence   for   the   past   there   is   a  place  for   original  2l** 
judgment   and  for   fresh    combination  of    the   old 
materials  to  new  suggestions.     The  bounds  are  set  rather 
in  mental  organization  than  in  the  nature  of  the  questions, 
which  are  of  the  widest  bearing.3     The  concentrated  rev- 
erence brought  to  bear  on  literary  treasures  as  such,  and 
the  practical  application  of  them  to   governmental  affairs, 
are  themselves  an  education  in  refinement  and  taste  which 
places   China  among  the  first  of  nations  in  the  scale  of 
civilization.     That   extreme  regard  to  precise  and  perfect 
expression,  which  has  prescribed  minute  rules  for  the  struc- 
ture  of   these   competitive   essays,  cultivates,  like  Greek 
letters,  many  delicate  moral  and  aesthetic  qualities   which 
offset  their  mechanical  tone,  and  which  are  less  conspicuous 
in  the  freer  literature  of  the  West.     On  the  one  hand,  the 
highest  merit  of  these  essays  is  to  contain  abundant  cita- 

1  Doolittlc's  Account  of  the  Fu-chau  Colleges,  I.  378.  2  Brine  and  others. 

3  In  Meadows,  Chinese  Rebellions,  p.  404,  there  is  a  paper  from  the  Shanghai  Almanac 
descriptive  of  these  questions. 


234  STRUCTURES. 

tions  from  classical  authorities  ;  and  the  specimens  we 
have  at  command  are  exceedingly  commonplace,  ringing 
verbal  changes  on  the  power  of  example,  the  expansive 
force  of  virtue  from  the  man  to  the  mass,  the  prince  to  the 
people,  the  importance  of  the  national  virtues  of  polite- 
ness and  mutual  deference,  the  adaptation  of  qualities  to 
functions,  and  the  sacredness  of  filial  and  fraternal  piety. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  shall  not  do  justice  to  this  end- 
less moral  iteration  if  we  do  not  weigh  well  its  persistency, 
its  enthusiasm,  and  the  faith  of  three  hundred  millions 
in  the  all-sufficiency  of  its  eternal  basis  to  preserve  the 
State.  Nor  has  any  other  known  system  come  so  near 
to  practical  success  in  securing  the  best  talent  of  a  people 
to  the  public  service. 

In  its  strict  adherence  to  the  national  classics,  this  Chi- 
nese curriculum  may  be  compared  with  the  regula- 
from°SI  '  tions  of  the  rigid  Christian  Emperor  Justinian  for 
christen-  tne  study  of  Roman  law,  after  he  had  reconstructed 
the  Corpus  Juris  in  the  sixth  century.  No  com- 
mentary was  allowed  the  student,  who  must  study  the 
Digests  alone  for  five  years.1 

The  "  Trivium  and  Quadrivium  "  of  the  mediaeval  col- 
leges were  quite  as  jejune  as  the  Chinese  programme  in 
respect  of  positive  science,  though  comprising  rhetoric, 
logic,  grammar,  arithmetic,  astronomy,  geometry,  music. 
Seneca  mentions  the  same,  all  but  the  first  two,  as  the 
sum  of  Roman  teachings  in  his  day.  The  Chinese  course 
yields  at  least  an  acquaintance  with  the  whole  history  of 
public  administration,  from  abundant  records,  for  more 
than  two  thousand  years.  The  way  is  certainly  opened 
here  for  engrafting  as  broad  a  scientific  training  as  the 
more  expanded  social  experience  of  the  West  imparts. 

The  abuses  of  the  competitive  system  are  perhaps  not 

1  Hadley's  Roman  Law,  p.  19. 


EDUCATION.  235 

greater  than  so  vast  and  complicated  a  mechanism  —  so 
beset  with  incentives  to  private  ambition  and  self-  Abuses  of 
aggrandizement  —  of  necessity  involves.  They  are  ^JT" 
bribery  of  the  examiners  and  of  the  attendants  ;  system. 
forgery  of  diplomas  ;  purchase  of  honors  by  subscription  to 
public  works  ;  brains  of  poor  but  able  scholars  loaned  to  write 
essays  in  the  name  of  rich  and  stupid  ones ;  betting  on  the 
chances  of  candidates  ;  and  the  sale  of  degrees  by  Govern- 
ment whenever  its  financial  resources  fail,  —  as  especially 
during  the  last  half  century  of  wars,  rebellions,  and  public 
calamities.  >  The  last-mentioned  vice  is  in  such  utter  viola- 
tion of  the  whole  spirit  of  the  system,  so  incompatible  with 
its  very  existence,  that  it  must  be 'exceptional.1  Strong 
protests  have  in  fact  been  made  to  the  Emperor,  showing 
how  cruelly  it  deprived  real  licentiates  of  their  just  earn- 
ings. In  1822  it  was  urged  by  the  censors  that  five 
thousand  doctors  and  twenty-seven  thousand  licentiates 
were  waiting  employment.  What,  a  hive  of  discontent  is 
here !  A  bad  case  for  Chinese  political  virtue  is  set 
forth  by  some  of  the  missionaries  who  have  detailed  these 
abuses  ; 2  but  after  our  American  experience  it  will  hardly 
be  maintained  that  the  sale  of  "button-scrip"  in  China 
is  an  anomaly  in  political  history,  or  a  special  result  of 
heathenism. 

It  is  scarcely  fair  to  reckon  among  the  abuses  of  the 
system  the  gift  of  offices  properly  the  perquisite  of  licen- 
tiates, for  patriotic  services,  and  for  conspicuous  talent  and 
fidelity.  This  is  rather  a  proof  of  its  power  of  expand- 
ing beyond  formal  routine,  to  recognize  noble  and  saving 
work  outside  the  schools.  It  supplements  the  purely  lit- 
erary element  with  practical  checks  and  balances  of  obvi- 
ous advantage. 
.Williams,  by  no  means  a  partial  witness,  allows  that 

1  Lockhart,  p.  6.  *  Especially  by  Doolittle. 


236  STRUCTURES. 

"  the  highest  officers  carry  on  the  unwieldy  machine 
its  moral  with  a  degree  of  integrity,  patriotism,  industry, 
"esults-  and  good  order  which  shows  that  the  leading 
minds  in  it  are  well  chosen."  l  Public  opinion  compels  a 
reasonable  fairness  in  the  conduct  of  these  literary  camps, 
whence  issue  every  three  years  a  band  of  well-drilled, 
ready-witted,  and  enlarged  statesmen  of  the  Chinese 
stamp.2  These  have  the  self-respect  of  persons  conscious 
of  having  earned  their  positions  by  fair  and  open  competi- 
tion. We  may  well  believe  the  statement  of  Dr.  Martin, 
that  they  are  the  best  specimens  of  the  educated  classes, 
and  that  they  are  held  by  public  opinion  to  a  high  stand- 
ard of  ability,  as  well  as  of  devotion  to  the  general  inter- 
ests of  education.3  The  Han-lin  scholars,  whose  science 
has  its  share  of  delusions,  and  whose  memoirs  are  but  a 
meagre  and  trivial  record  of  imperial  doings,  adminis- 
ter public  and  provincial  affairs  with  energy,  publish  a 
vast  amount  of  literature,  and  exhibit  the  fruits  of  their 
training  in  a  wonderful  development  of  memory,  acute- 
ness,  and  literary  taste,  which  is  wholly  at  the  service  of 
the  State.  Mandarins  who  have  bought  degrees  are  not 
treated  with  respect.4  Those  who  ride  into  office  on  the 
paid  work  of  others  are  styled  "  siu-tsai  on  the  crupper." 
Forged  diplomas  are  against  the  pecuniary  interest  of  the 
examiners,  and  the  crime  is  apt  to  be  severely  pursued  and 
punished.5  The  law  has  strong  precautions  to  prevent 
collusion  between  examiners  and  students.6  The  students 
are  equally  interested  in  fair-dealing,  and  frequently  rise 
in  concert  against  injustice  on  the  part  of  the  State  offi- 
cials in  charge  of  examinations.7  That  there  is  compar- 
atively little  corruption  8  in  the  general  management  is  but 

1  Middle  Kingdom,  I.  451.  2  Chinese  Repos.,  July,  1835. 

8  North  American  Review,  1870.  *  De  Mas,  II.  334. 

6  La  Chine  Ouverte,  p.  224.  6  Doolittle,  I.  427. 

7  Williams,  I.  453.  8  Martin,  in  Journ.  Am.  Or.  Soc.,  May,  1869. 


EDUCATION.  237 

the  natural  result  of  these  causes.  The  President  of  the 
Board  of  Examiners  at  Pe-king  was  recently  put  to  death 
for  issuing  fraudulent  degrees.1  To  debase  this  system 
is  to  overturn  the  very  corner-stones  of  Chinese  opportu- 
nity and  faith. 

Even  the  disappointed  competitors  flung  off  by  its  relent- 
less mechanism  serve  to  strengthen  it ;  for  Chinese  culture 
knows  no  refuse,  but  returns  every  thing  in  some  form  back 
to  the  soil.  These  victims  of  the  system  are  provided 
for.  They  are  the  village  schoolmasters,  the  private  in- 
structors, the  petty  officers  without  national  weight.  They 
are  also  the  protestant  element,  that  helps  save  the  system 
by  revolt  against  its  pedagogy  and  its  merciless  rigidity 
of  grasp.  Most  rebellions  in  China,  safety-valves  to  its 
conservatism,  originate  in  disappointed  literary  ambition, 
the  efforts  of  defeated  candidates  to  make  themselves  a 
career. 

Beyond  question  this  educational  system,  so  centralized 
and  so  uniform,  is  the  real  unitary  force  that  over- 
comes local  differences  and  natural  barriers  over 
the  vast  area  of  the  Empire,  by  giving  every  man 
an  equal  interest  in  the  whole  nation.  The  Chinese  could 
never  have  fallen  upon  it  by  chance,  or  by  the  inventive 
genius  of  any  man  ;  nor  indeed  by  any  other  fact  is  it 
explicable  but  the  marvellous  force  of  solidarity  which 
resides  in  this  self-organizing  race,  whose  central  motive 
is  never  in  the  individual,  but  in  the  whole.  By  its  steady 
circulations,  the  philosophy  of  life  and  duty  adherent  to 
the  national  type  becomes  a  common  treasure  in  its  high- 
est and  fullest  meaning,  —  a  heritage  of  all  generations  ; 
literature  and  patriotism  are  identified,  as  soul  and  body  ; 
real  study  absorbs  the  youth,  to  the  exclusion  of  political 
manoeuvre ;  an  ideal  test  and  standard  animates  all  effort, 

1  Martin,  in  Journ.  Am.  Or.  Sac.,  May,  1869. 


238  STRUCTURES.  ' 

incessant  and  inevitable  ;  a  democratic  principle  of  free 
competition  counteracts  the  absolutism  of  patriarchal  gov- 
ernment, sifting  out  the  energy,  talent,  and  devotion  of 
the  masses  ;  offices  are  filled  from  the  ranks  of  those  who 
comprehend  the  public  needs.  In  a  word,  the  school-house 
is  a  nursery  of  public  duties  and  national  aims  ;  nor  are 
there  wanting  records  of  its  being  used  for  public  meet- 
ings, in  which  free  criticism  of  the  Government  found 
utterance.  These  are,  each  and  all,  profoundly  important 
elements  of  national  good.  So  far  as  the  unprogressive 
round  of  Chinese  experience  permits  them  to  go,  they  are 
real  powers,  protective  and  directive  ;  and  so  vital  and 
supreme  over  personal  caprice  that  they  may  be  regarded 
as  supplying  what  we  shall  venture,  at  some  risk  of  being 
misconceived,  to  call  ^^constitutional  charter  of  Chinese  free- 
dom. It  seems  to  have  been  a  gradual  result  of  the  sense 
of  national  unity,  which  followed  the  abolition  of  feudal- 
ized States  by  the  Chinese  Charlemagne,  Chi-hwang-ti,  in 
the  third  century,  B.C. 

We  shall  hereafter  have  occasion  to  study  more  care- 
fully the  actual  influence  of  this  constant  supply  of 
uses.lg  tested  officials  to  the  public  service,  in  securing  so 
long  a  lifetime  to  the  Chinese  Empire.  At  present 
we  need  only  point  to  the  equity  of  the  system  and  its 
universal  opportunity,  to  its  appeal  to  the  natural  tests 
of  character,  io  its  stimulative  qualities,  the  scope  of 
the  interest  it  awakens,  and  its  reach  down  to  that  best 
principle  of  administration,  the  right  of  those  alone  to 
official  position  who  have  earned  it  by  discipline  and  fit- 
ness. These  grounds  suffice  to  excite  our  admiration  at 
the  wisdom  that  created  out  of  the  patriarchal  absolutism 
of  the  East,  without  scientific  or  external  aid,  such  a  polit- 
ical system  of  rational  economies,  as  well  as  of  checks  and 
balances  to  control  despotism,  as  this.  They  prepare  us  to 
listen  with  respect  even  to  the  enthusiastic  testimony 


EDUCATION.  239 

recorded  by  competent  observers  of  its  working  results. 
Speer  was  so  impressed  by  the  jubilee  with  which  the  suc- 
cessful candidates  are  greeted,  as  to  shed  tears  at  the 
thought  that  no  such  sublime  and  delightful  spectacles  were 
witnessed  in  his  own  country.1  "  Whatever  imperfections 
may  attach  to  her  system,"  says  Dr.  Martin,  "  China  has 
devised  the  most  effectual  method  of  encouraging  effort 
and  rewarding  merit.  Here  is  at  least  one  country  where 
wealth  is  not  allowed  to  raise  its  -possessor  to  a  seat  of 
power  ;  where  even  the  will  of  an  emperor  cannot  bestow 
its  offices  on  uneducated  favorites  ;  and  where  the  ca- 
price of  the  multitude  is  not  permitted  to  confer  the 
honors  of  the  State  on  incompetent  demagogues."2 

The  most  serious  defect  of  this  system  is  its  exclusion 
of  woman.  The  prejudice  against  female  educa- 
tion universal  in  the  East  might  even  seem  to  be  ^^2! 
intensified  in  China,  by  an  absorption  of  the  whole 
educational  idea  in  the  interests  of  that  one  sphere  which 
has  been  in  almost  all  ages  monopolized  by  the  other  sex. 
The  term  political  disfranchisement  is  hardly  applicable 
in  China ;  but  the  absence  of  what  is  embraced  in  polit- 
ical education  suppresses  of  course  the  most  powerful 
stimulus  of  the  intellectual  life.  The  educational  condi- 
tion of  the  poorest  class  of  women  must  be  deplorable,  as 
it  is  in  every  country  of  Christendom  :  yet  such  statements 
as  Bridgman's,  that  not  more  than  one  in  a  hundred  females 
can  read,  and  Morrison's,  that  no  poor  women  can  read, 
and  but  few  rich,  can  hardly  be  accepted  on  such  author- 
ity,3—  missionaries,  although  in  some  measure  acquainted 
with  the  language,  being  naturally  almost  wholly  excluded 
from  female  society  in  China.  We  may  even  say  that  the 

1  Spear's  China,  p.  540. 

2  North  American  Review,  1870;  see  also  Meadows' s  Notes,  &c.,  XI. 

3  See  on    the  other  hand  De  Rosny,  Seances  des  Orientates  (1873),  I.  p.  154;  Giles's 
Sketches,  pp.  11-13. 


240  STRUCTURES. 

obstacles  to  equal  opportunity  arise  here  from  the  politi- 
cal purposes  of  all  teaching,  not  from  prejudice  against  the 
pursuit  of  knowledge  by  the  female  mind.  In  fact,  public 
opinion  has  hardly  any  more  to  learn  on  this  last  point  in 
China  than  in  Europe  or  America.  The  contents  of  Chinese 
novels,  their  wide  circulation,  and  the  universal  habit  of  post- 
ing scrolls,  placards,  and  mottoes,  prove  that  the  supposed 
illiteracy  of  half  the  population  is  an  exaggeration.  We 
may  draw  the  same  inference  from  the  "  letter  writers  " 
compiled  for  the  use  of  women,  and  the  pride  taken  by  girls 
in  showing  their  knowledge  of  letters.  The  education  of 
the  favored  classes  consists  mainly  in  embroidery  and 
painting  on  silk,  with  music.  After  these,  however,  accord- 
ing to  the  "  Female  Instructor,"  come  rearing  silk-worms 
and  preparing  food  and  sacrifices,  —  then,  "study  and  learn- 
ing can  fill  up  the  time."  "  Some  women  are  school- 
teachers, who  instruct  in  needle-work  and  domestic  duties  ; 
and  ladies  are  to  be  found  who  are  learned  in  ancient  law,  and 
who  make  verses."  *  Not  only  have  educated  women  had 
fame  in  China,  but  the  highest  honors  are  represented  as 
paid  to  female  paragons  of  classical  and  poetic  culture  by 
the  emperor  himself  in  the  most  admired  works  of  fiction  in 
the  Empire.2  The  Tcheou-li  (VII.  32)  mentions  a  class  of 
female  annalists  who  registered  matters  pertaining  to  the 
empress.  The  heroine  in  a  popular  novel  is  usually  well 
versed  in  literature,  and  the  plot  is  apt  to  turn  on  the  sym- 
pathy of  the  sexes  in  the  honors  and  pleasures  of  literary 
pursuits.  Memoirs  of  eminent  persons,  in  which  China 
abounds,  invariably  treat  literary  women  with  respect,  and 
commend  the  careful  training  of  girls  in  all  branches  by 
parents  and  teachers.  In  no  other  country  of  the  East  is 
there  so  much  respect  for  female  scholarship  as  in  China, 
or  so  much  desire  on  the  part  of  literary  persons  to  have 
their  daughters  noticed  as  musicians,  poets,  and  classical 

1  Chinese  Refos.,  Sept.,  1837.         2  Les  Jeunes  Fslles  Lettrees,  translated  by  Jnlien. 


EDUCATION.  241 

students,  for  the  sake  of  the  family  name.1  Long  lists  of 
distinguished  women  are  given  ;  one  compilation  of  me- 
moirs, made  in  the  second  century,  B.C.,  fills  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  volumes.2  The  "  Precepts  of  Pan  Hwi- 
pan  "  (A.C.  80)  are  in  high  repute,  serving  as  foundation  to 
many  similar  works.  Lu-Chau's  "Instructor"  ascribes 
good  manners  to  the  influence  of  woman,  as  well  as  orderly 
home  disciplines. 

A  brief  sketch  of  the  history  of  education  in  China  will 
show  the  depth  of  its  relation  to  patriarchalism,  and  History 
reveal  a  universal  element  in  that  root  principle  of  °*the.' 

educational 

the  national  religion.  system. 

From  this  relation  comes  its  political  aim  and  function. 
The  State  is  the  embodiment  of  paternal  cares  and  Qri  inin 
duties,  and  education  is  its  minister  for  their  accom-  patriarch- 
plishment.     In  the  idea  of  governmental  care  for  a 
the  people  this  public  instruction  originates  ;    in  govern- 
ment administration,  for   a  similar  purpose,  it  terminates. 
Confucius  and  Mencius  trace  it  back  to  Yao  and  Shun. 

"  If  men  are  well  fed,  clad,  and  lodged,  without  being  taught,  they 
become  like  beasts  ;  for  man  possesses  a  moral  nature.  This  was 
Shun's  anxious  care,  and  he  appointed  a  minister  of  instruction  to 
teach  the  relations  of  humanity,  — how  between  father  and  son  there 
should  be  affection;  between  sovereign  and  minister,  righteousness; 
between  husband  and  wife,  regard  to  their  separate  functions  ;  be- 
tween old  and  young,  proper  order  ;  and  between  friends,  fidelity.  To 
him  the  Emperor  said  :  '  Encourage,  lead  them  on  ;  rectify  them  ; 
straighten  them  ;  help  them  ;  give  them  wings ;  causing  them  to  be- 
come possessors  of  themselves.'  "  8 

That  so  noble  an  impulse  should  proceed  from  the  oldest 
social  system   in  human    history,  the  patriarchal,  A 
suggests   certain  questions,   too  large  to  be  here  tionfor 
discussed  :   for   example,   whether   we,   who  have  repub 
outlived  its  infantile   theory  of   the   origin   of   authority, 

1  Williams,  I.  453,  454.  *  Schott's  Entwurf,  &c.,  p.  77. 

8  Mencius,  III.  pt.  i.    iv.  8. 

16 


242  STRUCTURES. 

have  as  yet  vindicated  our  transfer  of  this  principle  to 
the  self-governing  power  of  the  masses,  by  free  choice  si 
equally  noble  ends  ;  whether  the  majority-rule  in  our  own 
public-school  system  is  not  practically  as  absolute  as  the 
patriarchal  in  the  Eastern  world,  in  dealing  with  its  com- 
plex interests  ;  whether  the  indirect  influence  exerted  by 
current  political  motives  and  methods  upon  the  spirit  of 
this  American  institution  is  not  rendering  it  as  subser- 
vient to  the  political  sphere  as  the  Chinese  system  ;  and, 
finally,  whether  it  at  present  embodies  the  genius  and 
desire  of  the  people  more  fully  than  the  latter  does  a 
national  faith,  of  which  we  can  hardly  conceive  a  more 
consistent  expression. 

We  trace  the  theory  of  governmental  duty  just  quoted 
Records  through  all  the  standard  records  of  Chinese  belief, 
of  the  in  the  different  epochs  of  its  history.  "  A  disciple 
goTe™-  asked,  '  Since  the  people  are  so  numerous,  what 
mental  more  is  needful  ? '  Confucius  replied,  '  Make  them 
ttwLds  wel1  °fc'  ' After  that  what  else  ? '  '  Instruct  them,' 
schools.  replied  the  master." 1  The  Li-ki  urges  popular 
instruction  as  the  first  of  governmental  duties.  It  de- 
scribes imperial  visits  to  the  provincial  schools,  to  offer 
sacrifices  to  famous  teachers,  and  to  proclaim  the  principles 
of  natural  ethics  to  the  people.2  In  the  Tcheou-li,  which 
claims  to  be  much  older,  imperial  functionaries  read  the 
laws  and  precepts  to  the  masses,  inquire  into  the  conduct 
of  officials,  select  the  best  graduates,  and  advance  them  to 
public  posts.  The  Shu-king  itself  mentions  triennial  ex- 
aminations of  merit,  the  promotion  of  deserving  persons 
after  three  competitions,  and  the  appointment  of  a  superin- 
tendent of  music,  as  among  the  institutions  of  the  great 
Shun.3 

Confucius  says  that  the  essential  constitutions  of  the 
first  three  dynasties  were  the  same.4  It  is  interesting  to 

1  Lunyu,  XIII.  9.  2  Li-ki-ch.  HiokL 

•  Shu-king,  P-  II-  I-  27,  24.  «  Lunyu,  III.  2. 


EDUCATION.  243 

notice  that  the  Shu-king  describes  the  substance  of  tuition 
at  the  beginning  of  the  national  history  as  included  in  "  The 
Five  Instructions  :"  a  phrase  which  has  continued  to  cover 
the  whole  educational  ground  in  the  same  way  down  to  the 
present  time  ;  embracing  the  ethics  of  man's  natural  rela- 
tions to  himself  and  to  others,  —  the  unchanging  Chinese 
ideal. 

A  chain  of  documentary  harmonies  like  this  renders  it 
extremely  probable  that  the  general  educational  And  uh 
principles  and  methods  now  prevalent  in  China  of  Chinese 
go  back  to  a  very  remote  date.1  Yet  it  gives  us  s 
little  information  on  the  details  of  their  popular  develop- 
ment. Even  if  we  accept  the  Tcheou-li  as  representing  a 
period  many  hundred  years  before  Confucius,  we  find  that 
its  references  are  mainly  to  special  schools  for  the  young 
princes  and  nobles  in  the  feudal  period  of  China,  and  teach 
us  nothing  about  the  people.  It  is  somewhat  different 
with  the  Li-ki,  which  speaks  of  district  and  town  schools 
as  universal.2  Mencius,  whose  authority  on  ancient  mat- 
ters is  slight,  refers  to  graded  schools  in  the  first  three 
dynasties.3  What  is  reported  of  pupils  in  the  Tcheou 
period,  with  so  much  definiteness, — their  study  of  writing, 
numbers,  and  domestic  duties  at  the  primary  schools,  from 
the  age  of  eight  years  to  fifteen  ;  then  of  rites,  music, 
and  customs,  civil  and  political,  at  the  higher  ones  ;  their 
academic  course  in  the  principal  provincial  towns  ;  the 
presentation  of  the  best  to  the  Emperor  for  official  educa- 
tion, after  examination  in  rites,  morality,  and  exercises  of 
war  ;  the  inquiries  made  of  the  people  as  to  their  opin- 
ion of  candidates,  —  all  this  is  manifestly  a  later  theo- 
retic construction.  The  practical  method  of  conducting 
such  arrangements  is  nowhere  given  ;  their  execution  was 
plainly  impracticable  in  the  then  condition  of  China ;  and 

1  See  Plath.  *  Ch.  xv. 

8  Mencius,  III.  pt.  i.  iii.  10. 


244  STRUCTURES. 

the  Tcheou-li  itself  is  far  too  minute  in  its  whole  structure 
to  represent  any  actual  governmental  organization.  Its 
elaborate  details  of  education  in  the  royal  schools,  with 
programme  for  every  year  of  the  life  and  subdivisions  of 
studies  for  every  season,  are  open  to  the  same  objection. 

There  is  in  fact  a  serious  defect  of  evidence  as  to  the 
extent  and  character  of  the  school  system  in  very 
e^idlnce!  ancient  times-  We  sha11  hardly  find  grounds  for 
Biot's  positive  belief  that  public  schools  existed 
under  Yao  and  Shun,  since  they  are  probably  mythical 
monarchs,  analogous  to  the  first  Hebrew  patriarchs,  and 
are  referred  back  to  twenty-four  centuries  before  our  era.1 
The  Li-ki's  enthusiastic  laudation  of  the  primitive  Chi- 
nese and  their  perfect  institutions  throws  discredit  on  its 
statement  that  in  the  oldest  times  each  street  had  its  "  halls 
of  instruction,"  each  canton  its  schools,  each  department 
its  colleges,  each  principality  its  learned  academy.  It  is 
not  only  contrary  to  the  laws  of  human  progress  that  such 
completeness  of  organization  should  have  existed  so  early 
in  the  life  of  a  nation,  but  the  feudal  States  of  China,  down 
to  the  age  of  Chi-hwang-ti,  were  full  of  wars  and  jealousies, 
and  nothing  like  a  central  government,  with  powers  ade- 
quate to  such  results,  could  possibly  have  existed.  The 
most  that  can  be  inferred  from  the  testimony  of  the  Chi- 
nese books  to  a  great  uniform  system  of  public  instruction 
in  the  primeval  past  is  that  the  educational  impulse  is  so 
deep  and  earnest  in  this  people,  that  even  in  early  times  it 
must  have  had  some  definite  expression,  that 
Conciu-  schools  Of  some  sort  were  open  to  the  people  dur- 

sions. 

ing  most  of  the  Tcheou  epoch  (1200-250  B.C.),  and 
that  the  immemorial  ideal  of  governmental  duty  would 
have  closely  connected  them  with  official  stations.  The 
political  theory  of  moral  qualification,  as  condition  of  ad- 

1  Public  Education  in  China. 


EDUCATION.  245 

vancement,  may  well  be  held  to  have  already  lasted  more 
than  3,000  years.  The  Shu-King  is  certainly  at  least  as 
old  as  Confucius,  and  probably  embodies  what  is  even 
much  earlier.  It  describes  this  substance  of  good  govern- 
ment in  terms  that  have  not  since  been  improved,  in  the 
charge  of  Shun  to  his  twelve  mou  (pastors  of  the  people)  : 
"  Cultivate  the  abilities  of  those  near  you  ;  give  honor  to 
the  virtuous  ;  put  confidence  in  the  good."  l  And  Yu  is 
charged  by  his  own  minister  :  "  In  employing  men  of  worth, 
let  no  one  come  between  you  and  them."  2  The  Tcheou-li 
further  defines  the  six  tests  of  public  capacity,  one  and  all, 
as  combinations  of  integrity  with  special  distinctive  traits.8 

Whatever  elements  of  unity  China  may  have  possessed 
at  an  earlier  period  than  the  eighth  century,  B.C., 

Historical 

the  demoralization  which   steadily  advanced  from   origin  of 


that  date  onward   must    have   speedily    destroyed  *« 
them.    In  the  feudal  discords  that  disintegrated  the 
Empire,  Ma-touan-lin  tells  us,  schools  were  neglected,  offices 
became  hereditary,  and  competitive  examinations  under  the 
auspices  of  the  literati  were  no  longer  held.    But  a  reaction 
came  two  or  three  centuries  later  in  Confucius  and  Mencius, 
who,  in  the  depths  of  this  degeneracy,  revived  the  national 
idea  ;  reconstructing  and  practically  creating  those  classic 
books  by  which  the  materials  were  supplied  for  a  national 
system  of  popular  instruction.     But  the  wars  of  rival  chiefs 
and  States  grew  more  desperate  ;  and  anarchy  raged,  with  a 
violence  that  perhaps  has  never  been  exceeded,  down  to  the 
third   century,  B.C.      The   peaceful  ideal  of  the   prophets 
could  only  be  accomplished  by  the  sword  of  a  conqueror. 
The  combatants  were  mastered   by  the  prince  of   Influence 
T'sin,  and  China  became  a  centralized  monarchy,   otchi- 
The    new    military   hero,   it   is    averred,    brought 
the   barbarism  of   the  West    to    sweep   away  every  ves- 

1  Shu-king,  P.  II.  i.  16.  2  Ibid.  II.  6.  »  Tcheou-li,  B.  III.  24. 


246  STRUCTURES. 

tige  of  the  literary  spirit  of  older  China  ;  his  first  acts 
were  to  burn  the  classics  and  silence  the  teachers,  mas- 
sacring the  recusant  among  them  ;  apparently  resolved 
that  China  should  date  her  history  from  himself.1  What 
he  did  with  the  schools  is  not  clear.  But  it  seems  hardly 
probable  that  a  rulqr  who  opened  public  roads,  achieved 
great  national  works,  gave  landed  rights  to  the  people,  and 
reduced  ideographic  writing  to  unity  and  simplicity,2 — and 
one  of  whose  generals  invented  paper  and  the  use  of  ink 
and  brush,  instead  of  the  style  on  bamboo  plates,  thus 
opening  a  new  era  in  literary  progress,  —  should  have 
abolished  popular  education.  But  all  Chinese  literati  agree 
in  describing  him  as  a  barbarian,  and  relating  atrocities 
that  would  go  near  to  proving  a  Caesarian  insanity.3  What 
else  could  they  do  with  the  radical  reformer  who  dared  to 
strip  China  of  her  sacred  past  ? 

It  is  probable  that  the  military  spirit,  essential  in  that 
epoch  of  disintegration  to  national  consolidation  and  de- 
velopment, found  the  pacific  and  pedagogic  character  of  the 
literary  class  in  its  way,  and  was  compelled  to  suppress  it 
for  the  time,  by  forces  stronger  than  personal  ambition  or 
the  interests  of  a  class.  It  was  significant  of  this  higher 
meaning  that  the  great  invention  which  initiated  popular 
literary  progress,  the  use  of  the  pencil  upon  paper,  came 
from  the  military  sphere.  This  at  least  T'sin  Chi-hwang-ti 
did.  He  organized  a  great  Empire  in  place  of  utter  feudal 
disintegration.  And  only  out  of  this  ferment  of  germinating 
forces,  and  his  final  solution  of  it,  could  any  thing  like  a  per- 
manent uniform  system  of  public  education  have  emanated. 
That  this  was  the  almost  immediate,  though  unintended, 
effect  of  his  conquests  proves  the  prodigious  force  of  the 
national  bias  in  this  direction.  Thirty  years  after  the  death 
of  the  great  innovator  his  dynasty  was  overthrown,  to  be 

1  Mhn.  des  Missionaires  de  Pekin,  III.  269-70. 

2  De  Mas,  366-368.  3  PJUzmaier,  Wien.  Akad.  October,  1859. 


EDUCATION.  247 

thenceforth  a  byword  on  the  lips  of  the  nation.     The  Han, 
as  famous  as  the  T'sin  is  infamous,  re-estabrished 
the  old  laws,  recovered  the  books,  re-created  the  an 

libraries,  restored  the  political   supremacy   of  the  umPhsof 
i  T       r*       i      ^  i  •      i  i  •  .          r  the  system- 

learned.      So  short-lived  was  this    suppression  of 

the  great  idea  of  honor  to  the  wisest  and  best.  China,  say 
the  historians,  was  at  once  filled  with  schools  and  colleges, 
and  Confucius  received  divine  honors.  Here  was  probably 
the  true  beginning  of  the  great  educational  system. 

Buddhist  kings  succeeded,  opposed  to  the  literary  prin- 
ciple ;  eunuchs,  powerful  at  court,  persecuted  its  adherents  ; 
Taoism  on  the  throne  and  in  popular  superstitions,  it  is 
said,  discouraged  it; 1  anarchy  threatened  it.  But  the  brill- 
iant T'ang  dynasty  completed  its  renovation ;  perfecting 
the  school  system  amidst  the  Augustan  age  of  China.  The 
competitive  examinations  for  public  office,  originating  in 
the  seventh  century,  are  believed  to  have  been  fully  organ- 
ized during  the  eighth,  and  the  Great  Academy  was  in  its 
glory  at  the  head  of  the  literary  life  of  the  nation  by  the 
middle  of  the  tenth  ;  furnishing  not  imperial  poets  and  his- 
torians only,  but  directors  of  instruction  and  examiners  of 
the  schools.  During  the  same  period  the  Tao  sect  accepted 
the  system,  and  the  eunuchal  power,  hostile  to  literature, 
was  crushed. 

In  the  twelfth  century,  invited  to  aid  in  subduing  a  re- 
volted tribe,  and  then  turning  against  his  allies,  came 
Tchinggis  Khan  with  his  rovers  of  the  steppes,  to  sweep  all 
the  old  stabilities  like  dust  before  the  blast  of  their  speed. 
They  began  by  making  pastures  of  the  provinces  for  their 
herds  ;  a  few  years  pass,  and  they  are  sitting  at  the  feet  of 
Yao  and  Shun,  fulfilling  the  peaceful  disciplines  of  the 
schools.  This  latitudinarian  Tartar  dynasty  invited  the 
literature  of  all  races.  They  renovated  the  ethico-political 
theory  of  teaching,  built  temples  to  Confucius,  translated 

1  Bazin,  Journ.  Asiatique,  1858. 


248  STRUCTURES. 

his  works  into  the  Mongol  tongue.  When  they  dropped 
off  from  the 'national  ideal,  they  were  dethroned  and  ex- 
pelled. 

The  patriotic  Ming  encouraged  letters.  The  Han-lin 
was  reorganized,  with  a  bureau  of  legislation  for  discussing 
projects  of  laws,  and  other  special  committees  for  trans- 
lation, science,  history,  and  letters.  As  the  crown  of  the 
educational  system,  it  passed  its  members  through  ten  years 
of  study  before  bestowment  of  public  functions. 

Last  of  all  came  the  Man-chus,  present  rulers  of  China, 
entering  as  pacificators,  and  really  carrying  out  the  insti- 
tutions of  the  conquered  dynasty.  While  fastening  certain 
marks  of  degradation  on  the  subject  race,  they  have  re- 
spected the  ancient  "  rules  of  Yao  and  Shun."  The  com- 
petitive examinations  have  supplied  their  civil  list,  and  the 
Great  Academy  has  probably  published  more  volumes, 
such  as  they  are,  than  all  the  learned  bodies  of  Europe 
combined.1  Its  decaying  halls  in  the  now  impoverished 
capital,  as  recently  described  by  Dr.  Martin,  afford  no  indi- 
cations of  its  real  efficiency  as  a  civil  and  political  force. 
The  corruptions  of  the  politico-literary  system,  that  have 
grown  out  of  the  disturbed  state  of  the  Empire,  and  its 
financial  distresses  during  the  last  half-century,  have  been 
confessedly  great.  But  they  have  not  impaired  the  con- 
fidence of  the  nation  in  the  principles  of  its  system,  which 
still  overrides  all  differences  and  underlies  all  desires. 

Here  then  is  a  spectacle  for  the  nations.     A  political 
system  founded  on  competitive  disciplines  in  the 
best  historical  and  literary  resources  attainable,  — 
of  this       this  material  substantially  moral,  and  this  culture 
tory*      in  theory,  and  to  a  good  degree  in  practice,  peace- 
ful,   philanthropic,  democratic  ;  —  a  political  system    like 
this  taking  precedence  of  war,  policy,  trade,  subsisting  at 

1  See  for  list,  Bazin,  Journ.  Asiat.,  January,  1858,  pp.  65-104. 


EDUCATION. 


249 


the  very  least  for  two  thousand  five  hundred  years,  perhaps 
much  longer,  through  all  changes  natural  and  civil,  control- 
ling wild  nomads  and  bringing  hundreds  of  millions  into  a 
single  whole,  as  uniform  and  orderly  as  it  is  complex  and 
refined.  Is  there  any  essential  quality  of  religion  that  is 
wanting  to  this  record  of  China's  fidelity  to  the  principle 
that  the  authority  of  knowledge  and  virtue  is  the  only 
foundation  of  a  State  ?  Making  due  allowance  for  the 
peculiar  form  under  which  Chinese  idealism  appears,  his- 
tory will  be  searched  in  vain  for  a  parallel  to  this  testimony 
to  the  persistency  and  vigor  of  a  moral  conviction,  the  all- 
sufficing  strength  of  an  ideal  faith. 

Admit  that  it  is  formal,  unprogressive,  —  the  fond  at- 
tachment of  a  routine-bound  people  to  the  lessons  of  their 
infancy  ;  admit  that  if  more  freedom  in  pursuing  and 
unfolding  the  abstract  principles  of  social  science,  in  place 
of  crystallizing  these  in  their  earliest  expression,  had  been 
according  to  the  Chinese  mind,  it  would  have  said  and 
thought  less  of  this  "exclusively  moral"  culture;  admit 
that  the  construction  is  artificial,  mechanical,  overstrained, 
—  nevertheless  it  is  conscience  ;  it  is  benevolence  ;  affirm- 
ing their  intense  vitality,  century  after  century,  in  the  soul 
of  the  least  ardent,  the  least  speculative,  and  apparently  the 
most  materialistic  of  civilized  races  :  an  impressive  fact, 
that  will  lend  its  weight  on  the  side  of  human  nature 
against  many  hopeless  and  exclusive  dogmas  of  theolo- 
gians. 

Where  else  in  the  history  of  States  shall  we  find  a  per- 
manent national  endeavor  to  give  practical  effect 
to  the  theory  that  government  properly  belongs  to 
the   wisest   and   best   persons  ?     Plato    theorized  : 
"  Not  for  a  child  only,  but  for  a  man  also,  it  is  better  to  be 
ruled  by  his  better  than  to  rule."  1    His  affirmation  —  though 
capable  of  being  misconceived,  to  the   disparagement   of 

1  First  Alcibiades. 


25O  STRUCTURES. 

j^-government,  or  of  government  by  principles  indepen- 
dently of  persons  —  really  gives  the  corner-stone  of  political 
ethics.  His  "  golden,  silver,  brazen,  and  iron  souls  "  are  re- 
alities, and  the  oracle  in  his  "  Republic"  tells  very  palpable 
truth  where  it  says,  "  Whenever  iron  or  brass  shall  hold 
the  public  guardianship,  the  State  will  perish."  But  the 
Platonic  wisdom  provided  no  practical  method  for  accom- 
plishing its  ends,  and  no  Grecian  State  ever  made  serious 
attempt  to  adopt  it  in  the  form  of  disciplines  or  institu- 
tions. Pauk  predicts  that  the  saints  shall  rule  the  earth  ; 
but  Paul's  "  saints  "  were  worshippers  of  Jesus,  a  body  of 
spiritually  "  elect "  persons  in  the  first  century  of  the 
Christian  faith,  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  practical 
or  political  wisdom,  or  even  from  belief  in  the  capabilities 
of  the  natural  world  for  continued  existence  as  a  political 
sphere,  even  for  a  generation,  In  classical  heathenism  the 
grand  abstract  truth  of  the  right  of  the  wisest  and  best  to 
rule  was  held  to  be  Utopian  :  in  Christianity  it  held  itself 
to  be  supernatural  only.  Men  shrank  from  the  hopeless 
task  of  determining  its  positive  conditions,  of  marshalling 
the  social  elements  to  its  control,  of  applying  its  tests 
and  instituting  its  disciplines.  It  was  for  the  plodding, 
matter-of-fact  Chinese,  obeying  their  instinct  of  bringing 
the  ideal  at  once  into  concrete  and  permanent  form,  to  put 
that  truth  straightway  into  governmental  administration, 
with  a  heartiness  of  faith  that  has  seemed  imperishable. 
All  great  religions  have  ideally  announced  it.  The  human 
conscience  affirms  its  "  Higher  Law."  But  only  the  beard- 
less Mongolian  ever  set  steadfastly  about  making  it  the 
real  and  positive  law.  The  civilizations  have  said,  "  Poli- 
tics and  morality  are  distinct  spheres."  "  Not  so,"  say  the 
far-descended  State-builders  of  the  tribes  of  Han  ;  "  politics 
are  morality,  or  they  are  nothing."  The  difficulties  do  not 
appal  them,  the  fearful  failures  in  practice  do  not  quench 
their  faith  in  that  eternal  principle.  It  stands  as  absolute 


EDUCATION.  251 

as  the  faith  of  the  older  Hebrews  in  their  doctrine  that 
suffering  is  always  the  consequence  of  sin,  and  happiness 
the  sign  of  virtue,  —  which  they  cherished  through  all  prac- 
tical refutations  and  rebuffs  for  ages,  with  the  simple  rev- 
erence of  primal  human  conscience  for  what  seems  to  it  a 
self-evident  ethical  law.  But  the  Chinese  ideal  of  positive 
government  stands  fast  for  mankind,  while  the  Hebrew 
theory  of  evil  yields  to  wider  experience  of  spiritual 
laws. 

For  the  Chinese  man  in  his  concreteness  had  a  presenti- 
ment of  science.  He  instituted  a  method  of  testing  the 
virtue  and  knowledge  required  for  political  uses,  and  com- 
mitted himself  to  that  method  without  reserve,  staking 
upon  its  truth  all  his  patriarchal  ties,  traditions,  hopes. 
For  thousands  of  years  he  has  found  that  method  adequate. 
It  has  been  his  substitute  for  what  other  races  call  enthu- 
siasm, inspiration,  progress.  The  largest  science  of  the 
nineteenth  century  has  no  better  method  to  offer  than  his. 
Unquestionably  the  principle  it  embodies  will  have  to 
enter  into  political  institutions  in  a  form  nobler  than  any 
ever  yet  conceived.  But  the  Mongolian  realist,  led  by 
natural  conscience,  not  forced  by  terrible  retributions  as 
the  West  is,  at  least  did  his  best  to  enact  it  as  the  one 
thing  needful,  —  he  alone.  The  ancient  Persians  were 
said  to  have  taught  their  children  virtue  as  other  nations 
taught  theirs  letters  ;  but  nothing  like  the  vast  organized 
machinery  for  that  purpose,  which  China  has  maintained, 
ever  existed  in  Persia  or  anywhere  else. 

Make  what  deductions  we  will ;  allow  that  the  man  or  the 
nation,  whose  very  selfishness,  having  separated 

.          .  Estimate 

politics  from  the  conscience,  has  yet  by  its  own  Ofthe 
penalties  forced  the  maturer  powers  to  reconcile  facts- 
what  Nature  forbids  to  put  asunder,  stands  far  in  advance 
of   the   child    who  has  never  dreamed  of   the    separation, 
—  when  we  have  granted  all  that   is   herein  implied,  the 


252  STRUCTURES. 

long  reach  of  this  Chinese  record  of  moral  vitality  does  not 
lose  its  impressiveness.  It  is  not  pretended  that  history 
is  a  degeneration,  nor  that  we  are  worse  off  than  the 
Orientals  were  centuries  ago.  Higher  possibilities  have 
come  with  social  growth,  whether  well  or  ill  improved. 
None  the  less  do  these  busy  mechanicians  rebuke  us  with 
their  endless  endeavor,  under  conditions  in  many  respects 
primitive,  to  establish  a  virtuous  commonwealth. 

Their  obvious  shortcomings  in  practice  do  not  contra- 
vene the  steadfast  appreciation  which  has  adhered  to  such 
a  theory  through  the  vicissitudes  of  ages,  while  so  many 
empires  have  come  and  gone.  Nor  must  these  defects  be 
exaggerated.  Tricks  of  petty  Canton  traders  it  will  hardly 
become  those  who  study  human  nature  in  the  columns  of 
the  American  daily  press  to  judge  with  rigor.  The  probity 
of  leading  Chinese  merchants  will  not  suffer  by  comparison 
with  the  mercantile  houses  of  any  Christian  State.  Spite 
of  Confucius,  China  has  had  its  full  share  of  border  and 
civil  wars.  What  shall  we  say  of  the  war  debt  of  England, 
or  of  the  military  history  of  the  American  Union  in  its 
dealing  with  slavery,  with  the  Indian  tribes,  with  the  ele- 
ments of  discord  on  its  borders,  and  in  the  half-met  issues 
of  its  civil  war  ?  Spite  of  the  theory  of  honor  to  merit, 
corrupt  officials  pervert  justice  in  China  as  elsewhere  :  it 
is  no  easy  matter  to  give  the  saints  their  political  and  civil 
rule ;  but  at  least  the  Chinese  have  never  learned  to  mock 
at  the  idea  of  such  a  thing.  They  not  only  firmly  believe 
in  its  possibility,  but  stake  their  political  existence  on  the 
steps  to  it.  It  has  been  theirs  to  show  to  what  lengths 
men  can  go  in  an  evidently  honest  assertion  of  belief  in 
the  power  of  the  conscience.  Probably  the  most  signal 
instance  of  such  belief  on  record  is  the  deliberate  relation 
of  the  three  hundred  and  ninety  criminals,  whom  an  em- 
peror of  the  T'ang  dynasty  sent  to  their  homes  to  attend 
to  their  affairs,  on  parole,  and  who,  every  one,  returned  at 


EDUCATION.  253 

the  time  promised  to  receive  the  death  penalty,  —  of  course 
being  thereupon  pardoned,  in  view  of  such  an  example  of 
truth.  Similar  is  the  legend  of  the  youth  who  offered  to 
suffer  death  in  place  of  his  father ;  and  who,  when  the 
life  of  the  latter  had  been  spared,  refused  public  honors  at 
the  Emperor's  hands,  lest  they  should  remind  him  of  his 
father's  crime.  The  passion  for  such  tales  of  ideal  virtue, 
which  abound  in  their  annals,  is  not  mere  garrulity  and 
bravado  of  self-righteousness,  but  the  expression  of  a  faith 
in  personal  character  which  ages  of  instituted  culture  have 
rendered  instinctive  and  constitutiohal. 

The  preceding  account  of  Competitive  Examinations, 
with  view  to  official  function,  as  conducted  in 

,.   .  ...  .  Contrast 

China,  suggests  the  inquiry,  as   pertinent  to  our  with 
own  public  experience  at  this  time,  whether  that  American 

J  methods. 

Empire  of  the  past  has  not  herein  a  gift  for  the 
free  States  of  the  present  of  more  value  than  her  tea,  silk, 
or  porcelain,  and  more  creditable  to  her  practical  genius 
than  her  precedence  of  us  in  discovering  the  compass,  gun- 
powder, and  printing.  The  Chinese  competitive  system,  in 
its  general  idea  and  in  its  adaptation  to  the  people  who 
constructed  it,  is  probably  the  best  organized  system  for 
securing  character,  culture,  and  ability  to  the  service  of  the 
State  ever  devised  by  man.1  Contrasted  with  the  utter 
lack  of  arrangements  for  this  purpose  in  our  own  institu- 
tions, at  least  till  the  very  recent  and  short-lived  experiment 
of  the  Civil  Service  Commission  ;  with  the  prevailing  theory 
of  an  unconditioned  right  in  every  person,  by  virtue  of  a 
natural  equality,  to  hold  any  official  post,  at  however  critical 
a  moment,  which  he  can  succeed  in  obtaining,  and  of  his 
adequacy  to  fill  such  post ;  with  the  entire  absence  in  this 
scramble  through  the  gates  of  office  of  any  noble  conditions 

1  In  Meadows's  admirable  work  on  Chinese  Rebellions,  an  elaborate  system  of  competi- 
tive examinations  on  the  Chinese  plan  is  offered  to  the  public  as  the  best  method  for  "The 
Improvement  of  the  British  Executive  and  the  Union  of  the  British  Empire." 


254  STRUCTURES. 

to  be  fulfilled,  of  any  higher  tests  than  the  art  of  gratifying 
personal  or  associated  interests,  or  of  any  recognized  rule 
of  moral  accountability  or  ideal  demand  to  make  politics  a 
culture  and  a  faith  instead  of  a  scandal,  whose  daily  phases 
are  a  diet  of  foul  garbage,  a  mere  function  of  ferreting  out 
corruption  by  corrupt  means,  —  as  contrasted  with  these 
ideas  and  policies,  the  Chinese  principle  of  making  office 
the  reward  of  victory  laboriously  and  honestly  earned 
through  recognized  tests  of  knowledge  and  virtue  has 
surely  a  heaven-wide  superiority. 

"  What  the  wise  call  equity,"  said  Confucius,  "  is  that  in 
the  Empire  every  one  have  his  own  work."  1  That  func- 
tions should  be  filled  by  the  fittest,  that  the  law  of  "  every 
one  in  his  own  place  "  should  reign  in  public  as  well  as 
in  private  spheres,  is  valid  for  all  ages  and  races.  'The 
patriarchal  Empire  transmits  this  first-born  word  of  practi- 
cal wisdom  to  the  latest  democratic  Republic,  as  a  father's 
counsel  to  his  child.  But  the  principle  is  not  valid  only  : 
it  is  indispensable  that  we  accept  and  obey  it  without 
delay. 

The  so-called  "  practical  statesman  "  may  shrug  his 
shoulders  at  its  idealism.  But  as  things  now  stand 
dUUtyinStant  (l876),  common  prudence  might  suggest  that  it  is 
high  time  at  least  to  make  a  beginning  in  this  di- 
rection of  aiming  at  moral  guarantees  in  civil  and  political 
functions.  Every  social  right  is  sheathed  in  a  correspond- 
ent duty  :  to  assume  the  right  without  accepting  the  duty 
that  covers  and  limits  it,  is  the  brandishing  of  a  naked  sword 
in  a  maniac's  hand.  How  long  can  a  people  whose  claim 
of  political  rights  is  of  the  most  ideal  description  safely  de- 
lay the  stringent  self-disciplines  and  responsibilities  that 
balance  them  ?  A  people  without  a  master,  —  either  king, 
prelate,  lord,  traditions,  institutions,  or  authoritative  faith,— 
harnessing  nature  to  its  will,  shaping  its  own  destiny  by 

i  Li-ki,  XXVI. 


EDUCATION.  255 

sheer  majority  rule,  may  with  impunity  refuse  the  self-con- 
trol that  makes  the  less  wisdom  and  virtue  know  how  to 
yield  precedence  to  the  greater,  when  gross  saurians  can 
live  in  the  refined  atmosphere  that  feeds  the  lungs  of  man. 
Such  liberty  is  but  the  right  of  self-destruction. 

The  need  of  competitive  examination  as  a  test  of  fitness 
for  functions  of  public  import  is  now  widely  recosr- 

.        ,  i    •     i          •        r  •  '     Thecom- 

nized  ;  and  it  has  its  forms  in  most  modern  States.  petitive 
In  England  it  is  successfully  applied  to  the  East  method 

J  discussed. 

India  Administration,  and  to  many  other  branches 
of  civil  service,  as  well  as  to  military  schools.1  In  Prussia, 
an  educational  diploma  of  this  nature  is  a  rigid  condition 
of  holding  office,  and  even  of  professional  practice.2  Our 
own  Civil  Service,  whose  departments  had  become  "  asy- 
lums of  incompetents,"  as  well  as  nests  of  intrigue  and 
dictation,  under  the  recent  Act  purported  to  be  filled,  with 
the  exception  of  the  higher  grades,  by  competitive  proc- 
esses ;  and  we  may  well  hope  for  a  future  sustained  de- 
velopment of  the  system,  as  the  only  way  to  a  reformation 
of  evils  grown  intolerable.  Mere  pass  examinations  have 
been  found  wholly  unfit  to  secure  impartial  tests  of  capacity 
and  character.  They  were  abandoned  in  England  for  the 
competitive  method  after  fifteen  years'  trial,  in  1870  ;  and 
similar  experience  in  this  country  led  to  the  adoption  of  the 
Act  of  Congress  in  1871. 

It  was  framed  with  so  much  forethought  and  skill,  that 
it  seemed  a  first  step  in  the  ri°:ht  direction  which 

Th     u  /"*•    "i 

should  not  need  to  be  recalled.     In  place  of  the  service 
familiar  ruts  of  private  greed  and  party  expediency,  Act"  of 

'  J'   Congress. 

ot  venal  patronage  and  a  scandalous  use  or  local 
offices  to  control  elections,  its  open,  impartial  examinations 
promised  to  provide  a  manly  and  honorable  path  of  admis- 
sion to  lists  of  candidates  for  the  use  of  the  appointing 
power.     It  promised  to  abolish  the  mischievous  interference 

1  Printed  Report  on  the  British  Civil  Service  for  1872. 

1  Matthew  Arnold's  Higher  Schools  and  Universities  in  Germany,  1874. 


256  STRUCTURES. 

of  members  of  Congress  in  the  choice  of  civil  functionaries, 
—  a  hot-bed  of  corrupt  influence  and  dictation,  from  which 
only  here  and  there  a  representative  has  the  courage  to 
stand  off,  and  which  can  be  broken  up  only  by  positive 
withdrawal  of  the  right  of  patronage  itself.  It  sought  to 
give  unity  to  the  public  sense  of  rights  and  duties.  It 
sought  to  lift  politics  to  the  level  of  an  educational  sphere 
for  the  moral  and  intellectual  force  of  the  nation.  As  in 
imperial  China  such  methods  have  served  to  balance  the 
central  authority  by  a  steady  influx  of  the  best  life  of  the 
people,  so  strong  as  almost  to  justify  describing  her  as  a 
constitutional  State,  much  more  in  a  Republic  like  our 
own  would  they  protect  the  people  from  executive  usurpa- 
tion, and  give  tone  to  local  self-government.  The  growth 
of  an  aristocracy,  even  of  culture,  is  farthest  from  their 
purpose.  Both  in  England  and  America  they  have  pro- 
ceeded from  the  most  radically  progressive  element,  and 
embody  its  deepest  faith.  Their  very  definition  is  the 
unity  of  liberty  with  loyalty,  of  character  with  institutions, 
of  public  safety  with  public  faith.  Without  large  infusion 
of  these  guarantees,  representative  government  can  hardly 
be  any  thing  but  farce  and  fraud.  Practically,  too,  every 
competitor  would  be  on  picket-guard  against  partiality  and 
corruption,  while  devotedly  laboring  to  do  his  best.  The 
requirement,  in  all  ordinary  local  offices,  of  good  vouchers 
for  character  and  capacity  at  home  would  raise  the  educa- 
tional standard  of  the  whole  country,  and  help  to  sift  out 
the  baser  element  that  infests  all  political  centres.  Testi- 
monials from  the  great  majority  of  our  higher  officials  had 
already  (1874)  confirmed  these  promises,  and  opened  the 
hope  of  an  ultimate  moral  purification  of  our  national 
capital  by  means  of  this  system,  as  well  as  of  placing  its 
benefits,  at  slight  expense,  at  the  gates  of  all  offices  where 
it  is  needed.1 

1  The  admirable  Report  of  the  Commission  (dated  April  15,  1874)    affords  an  elaborate 
view  of  the  theory,  method,  and  results  of  this  measure     The  sincerity  of  President  Grant's 


EDUCATION.  257 

It  is  obvious  that  the  Chinese  system  cannot  be  applied 
to  American  institutions  without  important  modifi- 
cations.    The  competitive  method  cannot  with  us  Wherein 
absorb  all  departments  of  public  administration,  to  pethive 
the  exclusion  of  other  methods  of  choice.     For  the  f^f"1'3 

inadequate. 

whole  political  as  well  as  civil  list  to  be  determined, 
as  in  China,  by  competitive  examinations  would  be  sub- 
versive of  the  direct  action  of  the  people,  and  would  in 
fact  abolish  representative  government.  The  only  ground 
for  such  exclusiveness  would  be  a  false  presumption  of 
some  unchangeable  rule  of  choice  which  the  popular  voice 
is  never,  except  by  revolution,  to  transcend.  An  intelli- 
gent and  free  community  may  indeed  be  conceived  as  bind- 
ing itself  to  require  of  all  candidates  evidences  of  a  certain 
standard  of  education  and  good  purpose,  as  essential  for 
all  civil  and  political  spheres.  But  it  will  hardly  abdicate 
the  right  of  going  behind  any  system  of  machinery  for 
eliciting  such  evidences,  and  of  supplementing  all  rigid 
forms  by  the  direct  use  of  its  own  selective  judgment  upon 
the  whole  body  of  the  citizens.  There  must  always  remain 
a  margin  of  this  sort  for  what  may  be  called  the  free  intu- 
ition of  the  public  mind. 

We  may,  therefore,  easily  expect  too  much  from  this  as 
from  any  other  organized  contrivance.     There  are 
obvious  limits  to  the  power  of  competitive  tests  to  neheeddeeper 
secure   moral  guarantees,  however   strenuous  and 
impartial  the  process  of  applying  them.     The  "good  mor- 
als "  that  yield  a  fair  repute  are  not  equivalent  to  the  clear- 
sighted integrity  and  self-respect  that  we  demand  of  a  pub- 
lic guardian.     Purity  of  this  sort  is  to  be  discerned  only  by 
the  pure  mind.     A  representative  body  is  not  likely  to  be 
found,  under  any  form  of  selection,  upon  a  higher  moral 

unsuccessful  effort  to  enforce  it  is  not  questioned  by  the  present  writer,  who  firmly  believes 
that  in  all  our  recent  national  emergencies  he  has  left  a  noble  record  of  public  service,  which 
will  find  more  and  more  grateful  appreciation  as  historic  justice  shall  bring  into  clearer  relief 
that  "  iron  nerve  to  true  occasion  true."  (March,  1877.) 


258  STRUCTURES. 

level  than  its  electors.  It  will  be  quite  as  unreasonable  to 
expect  the  article  of  fitness  to  be  provided  us,  upon  the 
mere  security  of  diplomas,  under  any  system  of  tests  what- 
ever, as  it  would  be  to  deny  the  very  great  value  of  a  good 
competitive  system  as  an  aid  to  earnest  public  sentiment  in 
its  search  for  the  best  men.  A  free  people  cannot  escape 
the  condition  of  depending  for  freedom  on  its  own  undele- 
gated  wisdom,  its  own  direct  perception  of  personal  char- 
acter. Even  as  a  test  of  capacity,  a  competitive  examination 
is  by  no  means  conclusive  :  it  is  a  result  of  sudden  strain 
and  skilful  cramming.  The  Chinese  avoid  these,  in  part, 
by  the  long  space  of  time  through  which  their  preparatory 
disciplines  extend.  In  any  system  culminating  in  such 
tests,  what  the  State  needs  to  emphasize  is,  after  all,  not 
the  ultimate  trial  itself,  but  rigid  proof,  however  secured, 
that  the  candidate  (or  pupil)  has  really  passed  through  such 
continuous  and  thorough  disciplines  as  make  the  result  of 
the  special  trial  comparatively  unimportant ;  a  mere  inci- 
dent, which  may  or  may  not  do  him  justice.  No  mechani- 
cal contrivance  of  school-boy  marking  up  and  down  can 
afford  adequate  guarantees  in  so  complex  a  system  of  pub- 
lic duties  as  ours. 

While  making  the  most,  then,  of  competitive  tests,  a 
Conditions  further  basis  of  right  selection  of  officials  in  the 
dvnSs!r-d  Republic  will  probably  be  found  in  the  four  follow- 
vice.  ing  conditions  :  — 

1.  Provision    in  the   common-school    curriculum  for   as 
thorough  instruction  in  the  nature  of  our  political  institu- 
tions and  in  the  practical  duties  of  citizenship  as  is  pos- 
sible, —  as  well  as  for  teaching  our  youths  to  regard  public 
office  as  a  momentous  task  and  sovereign  test,  and  to  be 
infinitely  more  concerned  in  discovering  the  fittest  men  to 
meet  its  duties  than  in  pursuing  it  as  a  prize  for  them- 
selves. 

2.  Schools  for  special  departments  of  public  service,  or 


EDUCATION.  259 

provision  in  the  universities  for  voluntary  study  of  these 
branches  of  administrative  science. 

3.  Recognition,  by  public  opinion,  of  a  general  rule  of 
preference  for  those  who  have  shown  aptness  and  diligence 
in  pursuing  such  studies ;  affording  the  student  of  politics 
guarantees  of  due  appreciation  analogous  to  those  afforded 
by  imperial  selection  in  China. 

4.  Substitution    of    the    habit   of    advancing   tried    and 
experienced  public  officers,  and  of  retaining  them  where 
they  are  needed,  for  the  current  passion  for  what  is  called 
"  rotation"  whose  least  mischief  is  in  its  turning  the  public 
service  into  a  feeding-stall,  where  every  creature  that  can 
creep  or  push  into  it  may  claim  to  take  his  turn. 

The  last  of  these  conditions  was  met  perhaps,  as  far  as 
is  practicable  for  a  system,  by  that  provision  of  the  Civil 
Service  rules  which  forbids  direct  admission  by  examina- 
tion to  any  but  the  lower  grades  of  service,  —  in  order  that 
fresh  men  may  not  supplant  more  experienced  ones.  But 
all  requirements  must  be  more  or  less  results  of  public 
intelligence  and  virtue.  They  belong  to  a  republican  gov- 
ernment in  distinction  from  one  of  prescription  and  me- 
chanical routine,  like  the  Chinese. 

Again,  the  stimulus  of   competition  without  drawback 
inevitably  runs,   with   us,  into  excess.     It  is  well 
fitted  to  rouse  the  lymphatic  blood  of  the  race  of  Competi- 
Han,  and  they  have  fallen  on  a  real  incentive  to  tionin 

•         •  i  i-  rr      America. 

patriotism  in    its  democratic   equality,   which  off- 
sets their  patriarchal  rule  of  one  man.     But  the  American, 
unchecked  by  the  past,  urged  by  a  boundless  thirst  for  dis- 
tinction and  an   undefined  opportunity,  is  goaded  by  the 
competitive  stimulus  into  frenzy.     Already  his  very 
play  is  but  a  strife  for  mastery  ;  all  its  spontaneous  JJ£*" 
impulse  is  lost  in  the  dead  earnest  of  "  champion- 
ship ; "  the  heartiness  of  boyish  sports  is  foreclosed  by  the 


26O  STRUCTURES. 

premature  rivalries  of  men,  and  their  natural  healthfulness 
by  strenuous  toils  ;  every  motion  put  on  record,  with  a 
technical  precision  ;  the  boy's  muscle  paraded  like  a  drill 
corps  on  training  day  ;  and  every  goad  to  an  egotistic  and 
reckless  strife  for  victory  plied  at  once  by  the  press,  by  an 
exacting  demand  for  "  science,"  and  by  the  gambling  of 
excited  spectators.  Everywhere  in  American  life  we  note 
this  drift  towards  exaggerated  competition.  It  is  made 
master  of  every  field  by  the  perversion  of  our  republican 
principle  of  equal  opportunity  for  all,  into  the  selfish  false- 
hoods of  universal  equality  in  personal  claims,  and  of  un- 
conditional right  to  equal  powers  and  trusts.  The  preva- 
lence of  these  absurd  conceits  throws  all  upon  a  common 
level  of  expectation  and  desire,  with  no  alternative  but 
strife  for  common  goals  of  victory.  All  relations  run  to 
this,  intermunicipal,  intercollegiate,  interorganizational,  in 
every  form.  The  victor,  not  the  principle,  is  in  honor. 
"  Show  us  a  champion,"  is  the  cry  ;  nor  is  any  tie  so  sacred 
nor  any  emergency  so  private  but  its  hints  of  discord  are 
exploited  to  gratify  that  zest  for  personal  antagonism  which 
in  darker  times  fed  on  gladiatorial  games,  now  superseded 
in  the  lowest  strata  by  the  prize-ring,  or,  more  happily,  by 
the  peaceful  contests  of  the  hippodrome. 

Even  the  mechanism  of  our  common-school  system  is 
charged  with  a  similar  driving  force,  which  over- 

In  schools.        .         '  .  .    ., 

rides  the  nobler  motives  while  it  stirs  many  un- 
worthy ones.  The  human  atoms  are  concentrated  on  one 
common  competitive  plane,  where  all  are  urged  "forward 
to  a  common  goal,  under  sanctions  that  reward  the  ready 
brain  and  mortify  the  slow  one.  That  our  prescriptive 
mechanics  of  school  drill  must  suppress  individuality  is 
obvious,  —  not  only  from  the  nature  of  things,  but  from 
the  character  of  these  public  exhibitions  of  easy  mental 
legerdemain  and  formalized  writing  and  speaking  in  which 
they  culminate,  and  to  which  previous  reference  has  been 


EDUCATION.  26l 

made  in  this  volume.  Never  was  there  greater  need  of 
recognizing  that  the  proper  limits  of  the  emulative  method 
in  education  contract  in  exact  proportion  to  tJie  dignity  of 
the  aims  with  which  education  is  pursued.  Ignoring  this 
law,  it  must  exclude  the  higher  elements  of  personal  cul- 
ture, pressing  all  young  minds,  without  regard  to  differ- 
ences of  gift  or  bent,  into  a  dead-level  race  in  prescribed 
grooves  of  conformity,  under  mutual  inspection  and  con- 
trol. The  remedy  is  of  course  to  be  sought  in  real  educa- 
tion ;  in  evolution  of  the  special  forces  which  reside  in 
each  boy  or  girl,  —  making  our  school  system  the  producer 
of  thoughtful,  self-reliant  mind,  and  not  of  manufactures 
to  be  sold  by  sample  and  on  warrant,  to  suit  the  public  taste. 
As  it  is,  the  drift  of  republican  education  is  not  without 
its  suggestion  of  Sir  Thomas  More's  Utopians,  who  all 
wore  the  same  kind  of  clothes,  and  knew,  every  man,  just 
what  he  was  to  do  all  the  time,  as  a  piece  of  the  public 
machinery. 

After  all  deductions  and  warnings,  it  may  well  be  urged 
that  a  tendency  so  powerful  as  emulation  should  be 
utilized  for  the  general  good,  especially  in  those  ComPeti- 
public  spheres  where  it  must  inevitably  come  into  |^nisuse- 
effective  play  ;  and  that  the  reduction  of  it  to  a 
system,  in  which  a  course  of  real  study  should  take  the 
place  of  crude  haste  to  snatch  the  official  prize,  might 
even  serve  to  mitigate 'present  perversions  of  the  natural 
ambition  to  excel.  It  may  be  further  maintained  that  the 
recent  Civil  Service  rules,  properly  administered,  are  a  long 
step  in  the  required  direction.  And  all  this  is  probably 
true.  The  competitive  passion  would  be  tempered  by  dif- 
fusion over  so  large  a  field,  and  by  moving  in  regulated 
channels.  It  would  be  ennobled  by  association  with  the 
habit  of  honestly  earning  the  right  to  public  honors.  Its 
stimulation  by  the  greed  of  immediate  gain  would  be  re- 
strained by  the  indirectness  of  its  path,  the  examinations 


262  STRUCTURES. 

serving  merely  to  supply  lists  for  the  selective  judgment 
of  the  appointing  power. 

Nor  can  these  examinations  become  so  absorbing  with 
There-  us  as  to  supplant  all  other  avenues  to  official  life, 
served  The  appointing  power  cannot,  any  more  than  the 
yoncuii6'  elective,  be  superseded  by  Examining  Boards.  It 
systems.  w^j  retain  a  certain  discretionary  right ;  as  is 
illustrated  in  the  recent  rules,  which  provided  that  a  list 
of  fifteen  successful  candidates  in  each  series  of  exam- 
inations throughout  the  country  shall  be  submitted  to  the 
executive  for  the  exercise  of  its  free  choice,  and  enjoining 
the  advancement  of  persons  already  found  competent  in 
preference  to  new  ones  fresh  from  the  examining  board. 
In  cases  of  promotion,  it  seems  peculiarly  fit  that  a  discre- 
tionary power  should  be  vested  in  the  heads  of  departments  ; 
and  it  is  probably  at  this  point  that  the  rules  will  require 
readjustment,  complaints  of  their  working  having  been 
mainly  confined  to  this  class  of  appointments.1  But  the 
supreme  reason  for  maintaining  a  certain  freedom  of  direct 
choice  by  the  elective  and  appointing  powers  is  the  supreme 
necessity  that  they  should  possess  the  combined  virtue 
and  intelligence  which  justifies  such  freedom,  or  at  least 
should  practise  the  art  of  pursuing  it ;  that  they  should  be 
competent  to  survey  the  whole  field  of  national  capacity, 
selecting  the  best  material  it  affords  for  filling  the  more 
important  functions  of  government.  The  safeguard  of  a 
free  people  is  a  public  opinion  that  knows  so  well  how  to 
place  men  at  their  true  work,  that  it  can  trust  itself  to 
select  its  own  highest  agents,  and  then  trust  these  with  a 
reasonable  freedom  in  the  choice  of  their  subordinates. 
This  public  insight,  while  it  freely  uses  the  aid  of  compet- 
itive tests  where  direct  knowledge  is  impossible,  must  be 
competent,  in  respect  of  the  largest  responsibilities,  to  go 
behind  all  systems  of  machinery  whatever.  Care  of  the 

1  See  Report  as  above. 


EDUCATION.  263 

individual  by  the  sifted  capacity  of  the  land  is  the  ultimate 
aim  of  the  Chinese  State.  Development  of  the  individual 
to  the  power  of  judging  both  who  should  represent  him, 
and  how  the  representative  fulfils  his  task,  is  the  aim  of 
the  Republic. 

In  China,  public  administration  is  the  chief  final  cause 
and  motive  force  of  education.     The  classics  are 
mainly  devoted  to  the  moralities  of  government.  Of  the  free 
The  superior  man,  even  in  Confucius,  sighs  when  Personal 

ideal. 

out  of  office.  The  teacher,  while  bound  to  main- 
tain independence  of  character,  must  yet  seek  public  em- 
ployment as  the  highest  path  of  man.  Literature,  while 
loved  and  even  worshipped  for  its  own  worth,  finds  that 
worth  in  being  identified  with  civil  and  political  service  as 
its  central  sphere.  Confucius,  indeed,  affirms  that  all  pro- 
ceeds from  the  individual  outwards.  But,  instead  of  devel- 
oping what  is  involved  in  this  abstract  principle,  he  passes 
it  directly  over,  Chinese-wise,  to  its  earliest  concrete  expres- 
sion ;  namely,  that  the  individual  is  an  atom  in  the  mech- 
anism of  the  State.  Thus  the  grand  object  of  culture  is 
constantly  to  supply  the  best  men  for  public  functions. 

There  is  with  us  a  corresponding  and  even  intenser  con- 
centration of  interest  on  political  life,  though  with  very 
different  aims  and  results.  In  both  cases,  literature,  made 
convergent  to  politics,  lacks  independent  being ;  fails  of  its 
full  purport,  which  is  to  serve,  not  civil  and  political  admin- 
istration alone,  but  high  ideals  of  culture  and  faith.  These 
are  our  most  pressing  need,  for  these  are  the  roots  of  pub- 
lic sanity.  Political  purification  can  come  only  from  moral 
inspirations  in  the  public  conscience,  and  in  that  public 
sentiment  which  is  the  atmosphere  of  manners  and  the 
tribunal  of  conduct.  Of  these  inspirations  the  real  school 
and  the  main  guarantee  is  a  devotion  to  self-culture  for 
love  of  the  noble  society  both  of  universal  ideas  and  of  the 


264  STRUCTURES. 

best  men  of  all  times ;  for  the  sake  of  the  beauty  and  liberty 
of  truth,  and  the  dignity  of  generous,  life-ennobling  tasks : 
—  and  the  presence  of  men  and  women  thus  devoted, 
whether  in  public  or  private  life,  is  the  magnetism  that 
lifts  a  nation  to  the  level  of  its  best  opportunity. 

The  Chinese  find  such  moral  inspiration  as  they  possess, 
in  their  organization  of  immemorial  routines,  whose  service 
is  their  virtue,  and  whose  rewards  enlist  all  their  love  and 
faith.  But  with  the  Aryans,  or  rather  the  coming  republic 
they  are  to  share,  inspiration  must  be  found,  not  in  the 
routines  and  their  rewards,  but  beyond  them,  and  flow  in 
upon  them  from  a  free  pursuit  of  the  ideal,  as  a  power  of 
growth  for  the  actual  and  concrete  ;  as  product  of  no  pre- 
scribed mental  drill  or  moral  gymnastics,  but  of  pure  home 
and  school  cultures  that  shall  quicken  self-guidance  and 
self-consecration  into  spontaneous  habits,  and  domesticate 
mutual  deference  and  helpful  aims.  The  institutions  we 
seek  to  purify  can  be  reformed  only  by  a  sense  of  respon- 
sibility to  ideal  law,  embodied  in  the  popular  mind  and 
will. 


II. 

GOVERNMENT. 


GOVERNMENT. 


H 


EGEL  defines  the  State  as  the  "  concrete  realization 
of  all  the  relations  that  refer  to  the  idea  of  good." 
Confucius  and  Mencius  describe  Government  in  TheCh;. 
terms  of  equal  scope.  But  the  Chinese  conception  nese  poiit- 
differs  from  the  German  in  these  respects,  (i)  Its  ^ned 
"State"  is  not  an  ideal  concrete,  but  a  concrete  and con- 
ideal ;  this  totality  of  all  elements  of  good  being 
believed  to  have  actually  existed,  and  from  the  remotest 
times.  (2)  It  is  not  the  ideal  of  a  special  State,  but  the 
one  only  real  State ;  its  relation  to  the  idea  of  good  includ- 
ing allegiance  from  all  nations  and  races  to  its  own  exclu- 
sive authority.  That  unity  which  Catholicism  affirms  for 
its  one  church  universal,  the  Chinese  idea  asserts  of  its  one 
State  universal,  as  the  sole  expression  of  the  relations  of 
Heaven  and  Earth.  The  ground  of  this  exclusiveness, 
however,  goes  back  to  another  distinction  from  both  Ca- 
tholicism and  Philosophy.  The  conjunction  of  ideal  and 
actual,  of  Heaven  and  Earth,  which  in  all  three  constitutes 
the  authority  of  the  State,  finds  its  centre,  for  Christian- 
ity, in  a  special  miraculous  revelation  at  a  given  epoch ;  for 
Philosophy,  in  a  process  of  development,  by  which  it  is 
becoming  realized  ;  for  Chinese  Imperialism,  in  the  de  facto 
inherent  concreteness  of  the  ideal  itself.  Such  are  the 
postulates  to  which  these  three  forms  of  universal  author- 
ity appeal.  That  form  which  Christianity  claims  comes 


with  Na- 
ture. 


268  STRUCTURES. 

by  supernatural  grafting  on  a  fallen  nature.  That  on  which 
modern  philosophy  stands  comes  in  free  realization  by 
man  of  an  inalienable  nature  by  laws  of  growth.  '  That 
which  Chinese  Government  asserts  comes  by  an  actual 
and  inviolable  unity  between  the  nature  of  man  (which  it 
expresses)  and  the  nature  of  the  world.1  According  to 
this  theory,  man  was  never  outside  the  true  cosmic  order. 
He  has  not  this  order  yet  to  discover,  nor  to  fulfil.  His 
relations  to  it  are  inherent,  obvious,  revealed  from  the 
beginning. 

Thus  the  exclusively  Christian  State  (in  theory)  would 
despotize  over  Nature  ;    the    philosophical    would 

Intimate  .  .... 

relation  (rightly,  we  should  say)  divide  it  into  many  phases 
of  growth  and  differences  of  form ;  the  Chinese 
would  neither  despotize  nor  divide,  because  re- 
cognizing nothing  outside  itself :  it  claims  to  be  coextensive 
and  identical  with  Nature,  the  very  concreteness  of  real 
being ;  and  so  it  runs  back  of  man  through  inconceivable 
time  to  find  its  beginning  in  the  origin  of  the  universe. 

Like  the  highest  science,  it  holds  Nature  to  be  all  in  all ; 
but  unlike  science,  it  describes  Nature  as  a  prescribed  and 
perfected  concrete.  Its  universality  is  therefore  the  unity 
of  undeveloped  instinct :  it  is  the  unlimited  self-assertion 
of  a  child. 

Yet  the  child's  universality,  reading  his  realized  ideal 
everywhere,  and  adoring  its  sway,  is  not  mere  primitive 
homogeneousness  and  senseless  social  plasm.  It  is  presen- 
tient  of  that  identity  of  ideal  with  actual,  of  thought  with 
act,  of  the  One  with  the  Whole,  which  is  the  real  meaning  of 
Nature ;  and  the  political  structure,  however  imperfect,  in 
which  it  has  sought  to  embody  these  identities,  may  well 
have  stood  fast  through  the  ages,  just  as  its  appeal  to  nat- 
ural authority,  and  to  that  only,  unites  the  whole  of  prog- 
ress with  the  beginning. 

1  See  the  Chung- Yung,  ch.  i.  ;  Menc.,  VII.  n.  24. 


GOVERNMENT.  269 

f 

The  Chinese  political  system  gives  universal  meaning  to 
the  Family,  and  to  Patriarchalism  as  its  earliest  social 
expression.     King  Seuen  of  Tse  asked  Teen  Kwo,  onthe 
"  Which  is  most  important,  a  parent  or  a  ruler  ?  "   Family- 
Kwo  replied,  "  A  parent."     The  king  asked  angrily,  "  How, 
then,  does  a  man  leave  his  parents  to  serve  his  ruler  ?  " 
Kwo  replied  :  "  If  it  were  not  for  the  ruler's  land,  he  would 
have  no  place  for  his  parents  ;  not  without  the  ruler's  pay 
could  he  support  them.    All  that  is  received  from  the  ruler 
is  that  it  may  be  devoted  to  our  parents."    The  king  looked 
disquieted,  but  gave  no  reply.1     "  People,"  says  Mencius, 
"have  this  current  proverb:  'The  Empire,  the   State,  the 
Family.'     The  root  of  the  Empire  is  in  the  State  :  the  root 
of  the  State  is  in  the  Family  :  the  root  of  the  Family  is  in 
a  person."  2      This  ideal  of  a  natural  relation  interprets  for 
the  Chinese  the  whole  order  of  Nature,  and  is  identical 
with  it.     The  Emperor  is  Heaven,  the  people  Earth.     He 
is    the    active    principle   Yang,    it    the    passive    principle 
Yin.    The  fatherhood  on  one  side  and  the  filial  piety  on 
the  other,  which   the  State  implies,  are  so  inter-  An  inter. 
woven  with  cosmical  processes  that,  when  they  are  potation 
rightly  fulfilled,   these   pursue   harmonious  paths, 


there  being  but  one  law  for  the  two  realms.  As  order- 
the  patriarch  is  the  centre,  in  whom  reverence  and  author- 
ity meet,  —  the  line  of  the  past  and  the  line  of  the  future,  — 
so  the  Emperor  is  at  once  the  Son  of  Heaven  and  the  Father 
of  Men.  He  solemnly  invokes  the  dead,  and  instructs  the 
living. 

He  represents  the  unity  of  the  patriarchal  household  as 
image   of    universal    Nature.      "As   there   is   one  TheEm. 
Heaven  above  and  one  Earth  below,  so  there  is 


r          •  i          t  •       .   »  i_i          symbol. 

but  one  relation  of  prince  and  subject,    says  the 

Li-ki.  /   "  Heaven,"  said  a  Chinese  official,  taken  prisoner 

1  Han-ling's  Illustration  of  the  Shu-king,  translated  by  Legge. 
*  Menc.,  IV.  i.  5.     Compare  Ta-hio  (text  of  Confucius)  4th  par. 


2/O  STRUCTURES. 

by  the  Man-chus,  "cannot  have  two  suns,  nor  earth  two 
emperors,"  and  killed  himself  in  despair  at  the  anomaly. 
Even  the  Tai-ping  rebels  regarded  their  king  as  lord,  not 
of  China  only,  but  of  the  world. 

The  Emperor  recognizes  that  impersonal  supremacy 
which  resides  in  the  enduring  law  of  the  family  as  the 
root  of  man's  continuance,  by  an  allegiance  in  apparent 
contradiction  to  his  authority  as  sovereign  of  men.  Placed 
in  the  sacred  centre  between  rights  and  duties,  obedience 
and  command,  he  symbolizes  the  ideal  "  mean  "  between 
these  antitheses  of  Nature.  Thus  identified  with  cosmic 
order,  this  centre  and  pivot  of  human  order  means  the 
absolute  and  universal.  And  so  in  the  imperial  pomp,  on 
great  occasions  like  the  reception  of  ambassadors,  are  gath- 
ered up  all  symbols  of  splendor  and  power  known  to  the 
strange  Mongolic  history  of  the  nation,  as  to  their  focus  of 
meaning,1  —  umbrellas,  pennons,  lines  of  kneeling  men  on 
marble  steps  below  the  throne,  and  of  white  horses  on 
either  hand  ;  the  crack  of  whips,  the  wild  barbaric  music 
of  the  steppes.  The  Emperor  is  the  summary  of  history  ; 
enduring  type  of  the  mystery  of  its  origin,  and  image  of 
the  holy  seed  that  makes  a  nation  out  of  a  man.  This  is 
Abraham  on  the  throne ;  the  patriarch  faithful  to  his 
household  when  it  has  grown  into  a  mighty  multitude.  And 
as  the  patriarch  is  absolute,  so  the  Emperor's  authority 
means  that  right  of  the  father  to  ownership  in  the  person 
of  his  offspring  which  underlies  the  old  laws  of  Rome  as 
well  as  China,  and  forms  the  primary  stratum  of  political 
history. 

But  we  must  distinguish  this  sway  from  the  absolutism 
The  idea  °^  a  personal  will.  The  Emperor,  whose  dress  in 
of  the  the  old  time  was  covered  with  emblematic  figures 
real  sov-  °f  sun  and  moon,  dragons  and  insects,  mountains 
an(j  streams,  a  composite  type  of  all  powers,  has 

1  See  a  description  by  the    Dutch  Embassy  (i/th   cent. ),  Relation,  &c-,  P.  II.  p.  326. 


GOVERNMENT.  2/1 

this  universality  purely  as  symbol  of  the  State  ;  which 
means,  after  the  ideal  of  the  family,  providence  and 
obedience  in  their  simplest  and  broadest  sense.  Under 
this  form,  it  embraces  morality,  politics,  faith,  all  in  one : 
it  is  the  beginning  and  end  of  culture;  it  is  the  only 
church;  and  its  ancestral  rites  embody  the  initial  mystery 
of  faith.  It  is  not  objective  to  thought  and  feeling,  but 
their  main  constituent,  the  proper  personality  of  the  China- 
man ;  whose  national  character  reports  its  inworking  in  a 
curious  mixture  of  pride  and  submission,  each  member  of 
the  State  at  once  rejoicing  in  the  assured  sense  of  possess- 
ing a  perfect  law,  and  bowed  to  the  earth  in  conformity 
to  its  command.  He  realizes  in  the  form  of  instinct  Dr. 
Johnson's  theory  of  political  relation,  that  "  there  is  a 
reciprocal  pleasure  in  governing  and  being  governed." 
"The  slavishness  of  the  Eastern  Asiatics,"  says  Neu- 
mann, "  causes  them  to  name  themselves  from  dynasties  ; 
and  so  China  has  had  as  many  names  as  the  thirty-four 
dynasties  have  chosen  to  give  themselves."  But  the  term 
"slavishness "is  far  from  conveying  the  meaning  of  their 
pride  in  a  perfect  patriarchal  order  as  represented  in  the  im- 
perial office.  The  adoption  of  the  imperial  name  by  the  na- 
tion is  simply  symbolical,  and  proceeds  from  respect  for  the 
majesty  of  the  State,  which  absorbs  his  personality.  The 
Emperor  must  drop  his  family  name,  assuming  a  dynastic 
one,  consonant  with  this  transcendence,  —  such  as  Hia 
(splendor),  Ming  (light),  or  Tsing  (purity)  ;  or  he  may 
transfer  to  his  line  the  name  of  his  province,  as  aggran- 
dized by  having  given  it  a  founder  (Han,  Tsin,  T'ang). 
For  himself,  he  loses  even  his  "milk"  name  in  this  absorp- 
tion, and  instead  of  taking  a  borrowed  one  like  the  pontifi- 
cal "Peters"  and  "Pauls,"  is  simply  designated  as  Sovereign 
Throne,  Son  of  Heaven  ;  the  high-sounding  titles  by  which 
he  is  known  to  Western  nations  being  either  names  given  to 
his  reign,  —  such  as  Kang-hi  (profound peace),  or  Kien-lung 


2/2  STRUCTURES. 

(heavenly  protection),  or  Tao-kwang  (light  of  reason)  ;  or 
else  posthumous  tributes,  like  Tai-tsou  (great  ancestor),  or 
Wu-ti  (warrior prince).1  So  strong  is  the  force  of  social 
cohesion  and  organic  unity  in  the  Chinese,  that  they  have 
brought  patriarchalism  to  perfect  political  unity  in  their 
emperor ;  while  neither  the  Romans,  who  likewise  instituted 
its  absolutism  in  their  family  and  civil  laws,  nor  the  He- 
brews, who  based  their  nationality  on  its  traditions,2  ever 
organized  it  in  any  corresponding  way.  But  this  fact  does 
not  imply  enslavement  to  the  imperial  person.  It  is  the 
symbolism  of  the  State  that  rules.  The  silence  into  which 
the  individual  monarch  withdraws  before  this  invisible  idea 
is  as  perfect  as  the  stillness  of  his  people  when  he  passes 
through  their  crowds.  As  they  fell  on  their  faces  at  every 
refrain  of  the  great  Birth  Ode,  sung  by  hosts  in  honor  of  a 
sixty  years'  prosperous  reign,  —  "  Bow  down  your  heads,  all 
ye  dwellers  on  the  earth,  before  the  great  Kien-lung,"  —  so 
did  this  great  Khan  prostrate  himself  before  the  ideal  of  the 
State,  to  which  this  long  retrospect  called  him  to  account. 

It  is  a  popular  proverb  in  China,  "  To  violate  the  laws  is 
equally  criminal  in  Emperor  or  private  person."  3 

When  the  Emperor  is  congratulated,  upon  the  failure  of 
an  expected  eclipse,  that  Heaven  has  dispensed  with  the 
event  in  order  to  lend  a  fortunate  omen  to  his  reign,  it  is 
to  the  State,  as  identical  with  cosmic  order,  that  the  tribute 
is  paid.  When  all  officials  in  China  bow  down,  or  kneel, 
on  a  certain  day  in  each  month,  before  the  boxes  which 
contain  their  seals  of  office  received  from  the  Tien-tse,  it 
is  the  State,  not  the  individual,  that  the  worship  recognizes 
as  its  end. 

1  See  Re*musat,  Nouv.  Melanges  Asiatiques,  II.  pp.  5,  7;  Schott,  Chines ische  Sprach~ 
leftre,  p.  146. 

1  The  Hebrews  wholly  lacked  cohesive  power  to  develop  the  patriarchal  unity  into  polit- 
ical. Their  rude  sway  of  judges  and  tribal  chiefs,  followed  by  a  short-lived  theocracy,  passed 
into  royalty,  whose  speedy  disruption  issued  in  the  destruction  of  the  State.  For  the  influence 
of  the  persistent  carrying  out  of  patriarchalism  in  the  tenure  of  Roman  estates  upon  the  growth 
of  poverty,  debt,  and  slavery,  see  De  Coulanges's  Inst.  Pol.  de  la  France,  pp.  154,  208. 

8  Morison's  Dictionary. 


GOVERNMENT.  2/3 

The  mineral  symbol  of  this  absolutism  of  the  State  is 
jade,  a  silicate  of  magnesia,  "  indestructible  as  dia-  its  sym- 
mond,  and  nearly  as   hard."     As   the  toughest  of  bolism- 
minerals  and  one  of  the  rarest,  it  has  always  served  the 
most  important    purposes   known   to    its   users,  from    the 
building-tools  of  primitive  Swiss  lake-dwellers  to  the  scep- 
tre of  the  Chinese  ruler.1    Here  its  meaning  is  the  strength 
of  unchanging  sway.2 

The  astronomical  symbol  of  the  State  is  the  Calendar, 
annually  prepared  by  the  Board  of  Rites,  with  specific 
tables  of  lucky  times  and  ceremonial  occasions,  and  sold 
in  enormous  quantities  throughout  China.  The  imperial 
copy  is  carried  on  a  gold  litter,  enclosed  in  case  of  gold, 
and  borne  by  forty  footmen  in  the  imperial  yellow ;  others 
in  different  symbolic  colors,  for  princes  and  officers,  are 
received  with  reverence  and  distributed  with  ritual  forms. 

The  adulatory  forms  of  address  to  the  Emperor  have 
their  familiar  analogues  in  Western  monarchies, 

'    Adulation 

and  are  only  more  elaborate  here  than  elsewhere.  in  western 
We  need  but  mention  the  praise  of  Nero  by  Lu-  States' 
can,3  of  Alexander  by  his  generals,4  or  of  Louis  XIV. 
and  Napoleon  by  the  French  Academy,  —  one  mem- 
ber of  which  apostrophized  the  latter  as  "  having  a  destiny 
grander  than  Nature,"  and  as  one  who  "cannot  belong  to 
time  ;  "  while  another  hailed  him  as  a  deity  ! 5  These  were 
tributes  exacted  from  courtiers  by  individual  rulers  of  great 
power.  The  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  kings,  as  held 
in  Western  nations,  has  often  led  to  attitudes  even  more 
similar  to  the  Chinese  worship  of  an  ideal  State  than  these. 
The  resemblance  seems  to  have  been  sometimes  formally 

1  Notes  and  Queries,  II.  No.  2. 

2  The  word  is  used  in  compounds  to  describe  any  thing  strong,  beautiful,  or  desirable,  as 
"jade-sound"  for  the  voice  of  the  Emperor;  "  jade-brother "  for  true  friend;  "jade-juice" 
for  wine.     (See  Julien's  Circle  of  Chalk.} 

3  PJiarsalia,  I.  37,  38.  *  Chassang,  Hist,  du  Roman. 
6  Mesnard,  Hist,  de  V Acad.  Fran§.,  pp.  348,  242. 

18 


274  STRUCTURES. 

perfect,  as  in  the  results  of  ages  of  such  influence  on  the 
French  mind  of  the  eighteenth  century,  —  of  which  Morley 
has  said  that  even  in  its  clearest  social  expression  it  "  never 
rose  to  a  higher  conception  of  national  life  than  the  su- 
preme authority  of  a  benevolent  monarch  giving  good 
gifts,"1  —  and  in  opinions  like  that  of  the  Academician 
Fontanes,  in  the  time  of  Louis  XVIII.,  that  "the  mild 
and  regular  movements  of  a  paternal  monarchy  will  give 
to  talents  the  security  they  need."  Such  statements  would 
be  perfectly  natural  from  the  lips  of  a  Chinese  statesman  ; 
but  the  "  divine  right  of  kings  "  does  not  reach  the  root  of 
the  Chinese  political  idea.  That  vast  concentration  of 
reverence  on  a  central  sovereignty,  which  combines  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  souls  in  homogeneous  experience,  is 
something  more  radical  and  organic. 

The  patriarchalist  of  the  Middle  Kingdom  believes  in  the 
The  duty  'right  to  be  governed  and  the  duty  to  be  led.  His  look 
to  be  led.  is  to  a  superior  care.  His  faith  is  undoubting  that 
the  world  has  been  so  ordered  as  concretely  to  provide  for 
this  right  to  be  well  governed,  this  duty  to  submit  to  the  best 
leading, —  not  by  a  supernatural  volition,  which  might  or 
might  not  be,  but  in  the  very  necessity  of  nature  ;  not  as  min- 
istry of  gods  and  angels,  but  by  methods  essentially  human 
and  familiar.  It  is  a  providence  of  superior  men  ;  to  them 
are  due  the  inventions  that  have  lifted  him  from  barbarism, 
the  institutions  that  reflect  the  order  of  the  universe. '  No- 
thing is  possible  to  man  but  through  the  exercise  of  his 
own  faculties  :  the  only  divine  laws  are  the  positive  laws 
of  body  and  mind,  reaching  out  through  heaven  and  earth  f 
expressions  of  perfect  intelligence  and  will  (Shang-te),  and 
incarnated  best  in  those  benefactors  of  the  race  who  have 
founded  society  and  endowed  it  with  practical  processes 
and  powers.  These  are  the  patriarchs,  fathers  of  man- 

1  Life  of  Voltaire,  p.  79. 


GOVERNMENT.  275 

kind ;  and  it  is  the  "  will  of  Heaven,"  or  the  meaning  of 
the  world,  that  the  Emperor  shall  concentrate  and  repre- 
sent these  primal  kings  of  men.  That  he  should  not  rep- 
resent them  is  contrary  to  nature,  and  to  the  nature  of 
government.  As  he  is  Heaven  and  the  people  Earth,  the 
Emperor  as  sucli,  —  that  is,  the  good  Emperor,  —  must 
make  the  people  happy. 

Hence  an  absolute  confidence  in  the  power  of  official 
virtue  to  govern  with  perfect  success.  It  has  all  Moraland 
nature  on  its  side,  and  all  humanity.  "The  peo-  poiitic.il 
pie,"  says  Mencius,  "  turn  to  a  benevolent  rule  as  optin 
water  flows  downward,  and  as  wild  beasts  fly  to  the 
wilderness."1  Confucius  claimed  that  he  could  perfect 
the  fallen  State  in  three  years,  if  he  were  given  full  control 
of  affairs.2  Of  such  assurance  Chinese  literature  is  full. 
Its  terms  may  be  called  the  Chinese  syllogism,  analogous 
in  its  scope  to  the  inductive  process,  considered  as  the  in- 
strument of  modern  science.3  Given  a  ruler  who  rules 
himself  wisely,  his  household  imitates  him  ;  the  high  offi- 
cials follow  ;  capital,  provinces,  cities,  towns,  hamlets,  house- 
holds, individuals  in  millions,  —  all  feel  the  inaugurated 
harmony  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  are  blest.  For  what 
has  the  just  ruler  to  do  but  permit  the  operation  of  the 
just  governmental  law  ;  which  already  exists,  with  all  its 
arrangements  around  him,  a  pre-established  order  ?  What 
more  easy  than  for  him,  as  Mencius  says  of  Wu-ti,  "  to  hold 
the  whole  kingdom  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand  ? "  If,  how- 
ever, he  be  not  good,  equally  inevitable  is  the  perversion 
of  this  whole  process  of  natural  evolution.  The  duty  to  be 
led  fails -of  support  by  the  corresponding  right  to  be  gov- 
erned. This  man,  out  of  his  place,  which  belongs  to  virtue 
and  obedience,  is  not  Emperor.  Heaven  wills  his  over- 
throw, and  the  people  must  effect  it. 

The   facts   of   Chinese   history  so   well   bear   out   this 

1  Mencius,  IV.  1.9.  »  Lunyu,  XIII.  10. 

3  See  especially  Ta-kio,  ch.  5,  and  its  Commentary,  x.  i. 


276  STRUCTURES. 

theory  of  correspondence  between  the  character  of  the 
Theoretic  Emperor  and  the  moral  condition  of  the  people, 
ommpo-  that  we  are  aimost  impelled  to  trace  the  phenome- 

tence  of  r 

ruler  for  non  to  the  peculiarly  imitative  quality  of  the  race. 
And  to  this  special  ethnological  cause  we  must  add 
the  rapidity  and  force  of  example  in  so  centralized  a  mon- 
archy, holding  its  officials  under  close  inspection  and  con- 
trol. But  even  in  China  the  relation  is  far  from  holding 
,  good  in  the  absolute  sense  claimed  by  the  theory.1  Such 
entire  confidence,  not  only  in  the  right  of  virtue  to  rule, 
but  in  the  certainty  of  universal  happiness  as  the  immedi- 
ate result  of  virtue  in  the  ruler,2  in  fact  seems  to  belong  to 
similar  to  the  same  class  of  convictions  as  the  Hebrew  belief 


Hebrew         ^^  Jong    Jjfg  jg   tne   sure    reward     Qf    rightCOUSnCSS. 

earthly  Both  retained  their  hold  unweakened,  in  spite  of 
retribution.  repeated  contradiction,  as  if  resting  on  a  deeper 
basis  than  experience.  We  may  call  them  superstitions, 
but  their  permanence  is  to  be  explained  only  by  the 
power  of  a  moral  ideal  to  overbear  transient  experiences, 
by  reading  them  in  the  light  of  a  validity  accordant  to  its 
origin  in  the  conscience.  It  was  the  ethical  force  of  patri- 
archalism  that  made  Old  Age  the  divinity  of  Hebrew 
faith,  and  Organized  Government  that  of  Chinese. 

The  reliance  of  the  latter  race  on  the  efficacy  of  right 
Sponta-  ruling  does  not  rest  on  law-books,  nor  on  special 
neous  force  decrees,  which  neither  in  the  West  nor  the  East 

of  right 

in  human  can  explain,  as  they  certainly  do  not  create,  any  great 
nature.  social  conviction.  It  goes  behind  them  to  a  percep- 
tion of  the  inherent  force  of  goodness,3  acting  under  such 

1  Mencius  actually  affirms  that  "  there  is  no  instance  of  the  whole  Empire  being  obtained 
by  any  one  without  benevolence;"    VII.  n.  13.     "  Were  any  of  the  princes  to  practise  the 
government  of  King  Wan  for  seven  years,  he  would  be  sure  to  be  giving  laws  to  the  Empire  ;" 
IV.  i.  13.     "  Never,"  says  the  Ta-hio,  "  has  there  been  a  case  of  the  sovereign  loving  benevo- 
lence, and  the  people  not  loving  righteousness."     (Comm.  X.  21)  ;  so  Menc.,  IV.  i.  7. 

2  See  especially  Mencius,  VII.  i.  13. 

,  8  Mencius  says,  "  Never  has  there  been  one  possessed  of  complete  sincerity  who  did  not 
move  others."  (V.  i.  12.)  And  conversely  (VII.  IT,  9),  "  If  a  man  do  not  walk  in  the  right 
path,  it  will  not  be  walked  in  even  by  his  wife  and  children." 


GOVERNMENT.  277 

changeless  conditions  as  the  national  conscience  held  to 
be  its  organic  expression.  In  the  oldest  time,  according 
to  tradition,  there  were  in  fact  no  law-books,  nor  even  laws, 
their  use  being  foreclosed  by  the  spontaneous  obedience 
which  virtue  inspires.  "The  ancients,"  says  a  native 
writer,1  "  prepared  no  law-books  ;  for  laws  make 

Chinese 

people  contentious,  so  that  they  can  less  easily  be  traditions 
preserved."  "They  administered  justice  by  cus-  of  |L 
toms  and  preserved  it  by  truth.  They  honored  the  peo- 
ple by  humanity,  taught  them  by  uprightness,  inspired 
them  by  example,  served  them  with  joy,  watched  over  them 
with  respect,  governed  them  with  power,  judged  them 
with  strictness,  put  wise  and  true  men  over  them  ;  thus 
trusting  them,  and  preventing  disorder  and  calamity." 
"  A  noble  law  was  the  Emperor  Wen's  virtue,"  says  an  old 
poem  ;  "  daily  it  gives  peace  to  the  four  regions.  If  that 
be  so,  what  need  of  laws  ?  I  have  heard  that  when  king- 
doms are  about  to  go  down,  they  have  many  laws."  2  "  Let 
there  be  the  men"  says  Confucius,3  "  got  by  means  of  the 
ruler's  character,  and  the  government  will  flourish  ;  but 
without  the  men,  the  government  ceases. "A  "  Shun  selected 
Kaou-yaou  from  among  the  people,  on  which  all  who  were 
devoid  of  virtue  disappeared."  4  And  this  primeval  norm 
of  virtue  is  the  only  one  to  which  such  efficacy  is,  after  all, 
ascribed.  "  It  is  not  a  benevolent  heart  alone  that  makes 
good  government,  nor  laws  alone,  which  do  not  carry  them- 
selves into  effect ;  but  to  put  in  practice  the  ways  of  the 
ancient  kings."  5 

This  theory  of  a  primitive  government  by  force  of  char- 
acter alone,  without  aid  from  laws,  is  of  course  far  No  very 
more  valuable  as  an  ideal  faith  than  as  a  historical  old  laws 

.  111       extant. 

statement.     But  it  is  certain   that  no  very  old  col- 
lections of  Chinese  law  now  exist ;  and  though  the  Shu- 

1  See  Plath,  Gesetz  und  Recht  in  Alt.  China,  Bay.  Akad.,  X.  682. 

*  Plath  (as  above),  p.  683.     »  Chung-yung,  XX.    4  Lunyu,  XII.  22.     «  Menc  ,  IV.  i.  i,  2. 


2/8  STRUCTURES. 

king,  while  making  mention  of  many  old  laws,  speaks 
so  indefinitely  of  them  as  to  make  it  probable  that  the 
reference  is  only  to  edicts.  The  Tcheou-li,  which  purports 
to  be  the  oldest  code,  but  is  probably  of  late  origin,  refers 
mainly  to  the  royal  domain.  The  deep  ethical  loyalty  of 
the  Chinese  may  well  have  ascribed  a  great  force  of  con- 
science to  their  earlier  efforts  to  institute  the  State,  which 
is  their  ideal  good.  Beyond  this,  there  is  room  for  explain- 
ing their  disparagement  of  laws  as  in  part  an  expression  of 
their  faith  in  the  right  to  be  governed,  and  the  duty  to  be 
led,  by  the  highest  virtue  alone  ;  for  which  the  open  study 
of  written  laws  or  constitutions  would  have  seemed  likely 
to  substitute  discordant  popular  interpretations  of -a  book  or 
a  code. 

"  For  the  people  is  a  child."  Whether  in  old  Rome  or 
The  people  older  China,  the  patriarchal  idea  made  the  son, 
a  child.  however  mature  in  years,  a  minor  and  instrument 
so  long  as  his  father  lived.  Aryan  energy  mastered  this 
subjection  in  Europe,  but  Chinese  conservatism  made 
it  a  basis  of  the  political  ideal.  "  The  people,"  says  Con- 
fucius, "  may  be  made  to  follow  a  path  of  action,  but  they 
may  not  be  made  to  understand  it."  1  King  Woo,  in  the 
Shu-king,  counsels  his  brother  K'ang  to  act  in  government 
"  as  if  watching  over  an  infant."  2  "  The  saint,"  says  Lao- 
tse,  "  considers  the  people  as  a  child."  3  By  the  theory, 
the  prince  is  the  father,  teacher,  high-priest,  all-director  of 
the  permanently  immature  life  of  his  vast  family.  Laws 
are  his  resort  only  when  the  people  fail  of  the  sense  of  duty 
to  be  led  ;  both  prince  and  people  recognizing  their  neces- 
sity as  signs  of  their  own  inferiority  to  the  norm  of  con- 
duct, which  was  realized  in  the  primeval  days  of  Yao  and 
Shun. 

But  though  laws  are  secondary  to  these  natural  condi- 
tions, there  is  a  Law  higher  than  the  wisdom  of  princes 

1  Lunyu,  VIII.  9-  2  Shu-king,  Pt.  V.  B.  ix.  9.  s  Tao-te-king,  II.  49. 


GOVERNMENT.  279 

or  the  weakness  of  peoples,  —  a  principle,  on  which  rest 
the  rights  and  duties  of  both  ;   namely,  the  Uni-  universal 
versal  Good.     This  is  the  real  basis  of  government   s°odthe 
in  the  Chinese  theory,  conceived  as  conferred  by  govem- 
Heaven  on  the  people  without  distinction  of  class,   ment< 
as  those  who  have  a  right  to  be  led  in  the  best  way.     To 
sustain,  to  tranquillize,  to  educate,  to  harmonize  the  whole 
people,  —  this   is    the   sacred   mandate    that   princes   and 
dynasties  must  obey.     Hear  Confucius  announce  it ; — 

0 

"  The  requisites  of  government  are  sufficiency  of  food  and  military 
force,  and  the  confidence  of  the  people  in  their  ruler.  ...  If  the 
people  have  no  faith  in  their  ruler,  there  is  no  standing  for  the  State."  l 

"  Precede  the  people  by  your  example,  and  be  laborious  in  their 
affairs  ;  do  not  become  weary  in  these  things." z  "  That  is  good  gov- 
ernment, when  those  who  are  near  are  made  happy,  and  those  who  are 
afar  off  are  attracted."  3  "  Heaven  and  earth  are  parent  of  all  creatures. 
Sincerity  and  wisdom  become  the  sovereign ;  for  he  is  the  parent  of 
the  people." 4 

One  passage  from  the  Shu-king  suffices  to  give  the  pur- 
port of  all  the  classics  on  this  theme. 

"Yue,  having  received  the  presidency,  said  to  the  king:  'The 
founding  of  States  and  setting  up  of  capitals,  and  the  appointment  of 
kings  and  high  officials,  was  not  designed  to  minister  to  the  idleness 
and  pleasure  of  one,  but  for  the  good  government  of  the  people. 
Heaven  is  all-wise.  Let  the  ruler  take  it  for  pattern ;  his  ministers 
will  accord  with  him,  and  the  people  will  be  well  ruled.'  .... 

"  The  king  said  :  '  O  Yue,  your  words  should  indeed  be  followed.  If 
you  were  not  so  good  in  counsel,  I  should  not  have  heard  these  things 
for  my  practice.' 

"Yue  did  obeisance  with  his  head  to  the  ground,  and  said  :  *  It  is 
not  the  knowing  that  is  difficult,  but  the  doing.'  "  5 

This  upward  look,  this  trust  in  right  leading,  coupled 
with  the  humanity  which  sees  the  good  of  each  to 

Patriarch- 
depend  on  the  good  of  all,  is  the  fact  of  import  to  aiism  and 

universal  religion  in  these  embryotic  methods  of 
the  patriarchal   State.      Before  us,  on   a   colossal 

*  Lunyu,  XII.  7.  2  Ibid.,  XIII.  r.  »  Ibid.,  XIII.  16. 

*  Shu-king,  V.  B.  I.  3.     ,  6  Shu-king,  Pt.  IV.  B.  vni.  2. 


28O  STRUCTURES. 

scale,  stand  the  enduring  elements  which  justify  patriarch- 
alism  as  a  stage  in  social  construction,  —  its  germs  of  the 
liberty  of  obedience,  its  participation  in  the  substance  of 
religion,  morality,  science.  The  peculiarities  of  the  Mon- 
golian race,  in  their  Chinese  or  typical  form,  have  elected 
them  to  serve  as  a  permanent  record  of  its  significance, 
—  little  individuality,  great  centripetal  impulse,  a  plodding 
temperament,  slow  to  self-assertion,  and  submissive  to 
The  oldest  the  steady  operation  of  organic  laws.  These  are 
posiuvists.  our  oldest  positivists,  who  combine  with  Comte's 
theory  that  man  is  to  be  governed  as  much  as  possible  an 
ideal  of  spontaneous  obedience  to  the  law  of  his  nature, 
which  corresponds  to  Spencer's  anti-Comtist  doctrine  that 
he  is  to  be  governed  as  little  as  possible,  —  though  taking 
this  perfect  state  to  be  the  primal  fact  of  history,  not,  as  he 
does,  only  the  final  result  of  its  evolution.  They  made  social 
order  their  religion,  and  had  perfect  faith  in  it  as  the  end 
which  all  human  forces  pursued.  Disobedience  to  the  wise 
who  led  the  way  to  it  was  against  nature.  "  It  is  better," 
said  Confucius,  "  to  be  mean  than  to  be  insubordinate." 

We  have  presented  only  one  side  of  the  Chinese  political 
idea,  —  the  duty  to  be  led.  There  is  also  the  right  to  be 
governed.  We  must  emphasize  that  word  right. 

China  is  loosely  called  a  despotism  ;  and  of  all  forms 
Govern-  °^  despotism  tne  Oriental  is  supposed  to  be  the 
mentof  most  oppressive :  but  the  judgment  is  superficial, 
a  despot-*  Taking  the  term  in  its  modern  sense  of  arbitrary 
ism.  personal  government,  it  is  scarcely  applicable  to 

the  great  Eastern  systems  at  all.  The  Hindu  priest,  the 
Chinese  emperor,  are  subject  to  restrictions  such  as  no 
written  constitution  could  impose  on  a  great  Western  con- 
queror or  on  a  slave  oligarchy.  Remusat  observes  :  "  If  by 
despot  is  meant  an  absolute  master,  disposing  at  will  of  the 
property  and  life  of  his  subjects,  usingj  and  abusing  a  bound- 


GOVERNMENT.  28 1 

less  power,  I  can  see  none  such  in  the  East."  If  this  view 
be  correct,  it  is  plain  that  the  transition  of  patriarchalism 
from  the  domestic  to  the  political  stage  was  a  real  step  of 
progress,  involving  the  gradual  dropping  away  of  the  father's 
unconditioned  right  over  the  life  and  death  of  his  offspring. 
Such  a  step  is  in  fact  manifest  in  the  imperial  "  absolu- 
tism ; "  which,  in  theory,  appears  a  complete  negation  of 
public  liberty,  but  in  fact  is  qualified  by  important  limits 
and  responsibilities.  Hegel's  formula,  "  In  the  East,  freedom 
is  for  one  ;  in  the  antique  world,  for  several ;  in  the  modern, 
for  all,"  is  misleading.  The  Emperor  is  farthest  imperiai re- 
possible  from  an  autocrat.  Caprice  does  not  enter. strictions< 
into  his  definition.  He  is  the  creature  of  a  formal  and 
ceremonial  determinism  as  strict  as  the  modern  doctrine  of 
philosophical  or  theological  necessity.  Master  of  the  world 
and  Son  of  Heaven,  he  cannot  without  sin  go  out  of  his 
round  of  etiquette,  nor  interpose  an  impulse  of  caprice  into 
the  prescription  of  times  and  ways,  nor  escape  his  palace, 
nor  choose  his  food,  nor  use  a  fan.  To  all  that  enters  into 
the  concrete  norm  of  the  traditional  State,  this  type  of 
Heaven,  this  representative  Father,  is  responsible. 

I.  The  basis  of  authority  is,  first  of  all,  religious.     To 
"  Heaven,"  whence  he  receives  his  function,1  he  is  Responsi. 
accountable  for  its  record  and  results.     If  the  peo-  biuty  to 
pie  surfer,  it  is  his  fault,  and  he  must  atone  by 
prayer,    sacrifice,    and    repentance,  as   a   disobedient    son. 
Hear  the  ancient  emperors  :  — 

"  The  crimes  of  the  people  are  all  chargeable  on  me.  How  much 
more,  when  the  report  of  them  goes  up  so  manifestly  to  Heaven  !  " 

"  I,  who  am  a  little  child,  am  filled  with  fears.  I  have  offered  sac- 
rifices to  Shangte,  also  to  the  earth  ;  and  now  I  lead  you  to  execute 
Heaven's  penalty  on  the  tyrant  Chow.  If  I  subdue  him,  it  will  not  be 
my  prowess,  but  the  virtue  of  my  dead  father.  If  he  subdue  me,  it  will 
not  be  my  father's  fault,  but  because  I,  who  am  a  child,  am  not  good."  3 

1  Menc.,  V.  I.  5.  *  Ching  in  Shu-king,  Pt.  V.  B.  ix. 

3  Woo  in  Ibid.,  Pt.  V.  a  i.  • 


282  STRUCTURES. 

"  It  is  given  to  me,  the  one  man,  to  give  tranquillity  to  your  States 
and  families  ;  and  now  I  know  not  whether  I  may  not  offend  the  powers 
above  and  beneath  me.  For  the  evil  in  me  I  will  not  dare  to  forgive 
myself.  I  will  examine  all  things  in  harmony  with  the  mind  of  God."  l 

Here  is  the  prayer  of  a  recent  ruler  in  time  of  drought : 

"  I,  the  minister  of  Heaven,  am  placed  over  mankind,  and  am  re- 
sponsible for  keeping  the  world  in  order.  Trembling  with  anxiety,  I 
remember  that  the  cause  of  this  dire  calamity  is  the  enormity  of  my 
transgressions.  I  am  impelled  to  imitate  my  fathers,  and  examine 
whether  I  have  failed  in  sacrifices,  or  suffered  pride  and  prodigality  in 
my  heart,  or  been  remiss  in  the  duties  of  government ;  or  violated 
equity  in  rewards  and  punishments  ;  or  distressed  the  people  by  costly 
tombs  and  gardens,  or  by  appointing  unworthy  officers  ;  or  refused  the 
appeal  of  the  wronged,  or  persecuted  the  innocent,  or  pursued  war  for 
the  sake  of  gain.  Prostrate,  I  implore  Heaven  to  pardon  my  ignorance 
and  folly,  and  grant  me  self-renovation  ;  for  myriads  of  innocent  people 
are  involved  by  me,  a  single  man."  * 

This  excess  of  responsibility  is  but  the  reverse  side  of 
TO  the  cor-  tne  divine  powers  with  which  the  imperial  office  is 
relation  of  supposed  to  be  endowed.  It  is  a  natural  develop- 
IrithTu-  merit  of  the  custom,  which  is  found  to  prevail 
ties-  among  rudest  tribes,  of  holding  their  chiefs  ac- 
countable, with  their  life,  for  the  consequences  of  that 
entire  faith  which  has  been  reposed  by  the  people  in 
their  authority  to  rule.3  The  official  fetich,  like  the  carved 
or  moulded  one,  is  made  answerable  for  the  failure  of  his 
powers  to  effect  the  promised  good  of  his  worshippers. 
The  correlation  of  duties  with  rights,  the  soul  of  highest 
public  culture,  is  thus  traceable  far  back  into  the  primitive 
stages  or  first  essays  of  social  construction,  affirming  the 
transcendence  of  the  moral  law  to  all  personal  pretensions. 

The  Chinese  emperor  mediates  with  the  higher  powers 
by  prayers,  divinations,  and  the  unremitting  cares  of  gov- 
ernment ;  strictly  held  to  the  standard  of  his  theoretic 

1  T'ang  in  Shu-king,  Pt.  IV.  B.  in. 

a  Kea-king  (1802);  see  Martin's  China,  I.  64.  So  Hien-fung,  in  the  crisis  of  the  recent 
civil  war. 

3  For  curioul  illustrations,  see  Bastian,  Das  Bestdndige  in  den  Menschenrassen,  p.  93. 


GOVERNMENT.  283 

position,  as  the  typical  functionary,  the  best  man  in  the 
best  place.  It  is  the  recognition  of  a  diviner  than  kings, 
—  the  universal  law  of  justice. 

"  Let  not  the  Emperor  set  example  of  indolence  or  dissoluteness  to 
the  rulers  of  States  ;  but  be  wary,  remembering  that  in  one  day  may 
occur  ten  thousand  causes  of  things.  The  work  is  Heaven's,  and  man 
but  its  workman.1' l 

"  Laws,  rites,  rewards,  and  punishments,  all  come  from  Heaven.  Its 
will  is  to  reward  the  good  and  punish  the  guilty  ;  and,  when  it  punishes, 
neither  great  nor  small  escape  it."  2 

"  One  may  occupy  the  throne,  but  if  he  has  not  the  proper  virtue  he 
may  not  dare  to  make  ceremonies  nor  music.  But  the  good  ruler  pre- 
sents himself  before  heaven  and  earth  with  his  institutions,  and  with 
undoubting  confidence,  showing  that  he  knows  Heaven."3 

What  a  force  is  the  loyalty  of  a  people  that  fall  down, 
with  tears  and  blessings,  along  the  Emperor's  track  when 
he  visits  the  tombs  of  his  fathers,  yet  break  out  in  rebellion 
when  he  violates  the  order  of  the  State !  The  records  left 
by  such  rulers  as  Tai-tsung,  Kang-hi,  and  Kien-lung  in  the 
heart  of  the  nation,  and  in  the  empire  that  sprang  from 
their  virtues,  make  good  all  that  Confucius  taught  of  the 
power  of  the  righteous  king  to  transform  his  people  to  his 
own  ideal. 

II.  He  is  responsible  to  the  earthly  record  of  his  conduct 
as  well  as  to  the  heavenly  ;  to  the  remonstrances  of  a  Board 
of  Censors,  and  to  the  official  register  of  his  words  and 
deeds,  written  in  secret,  and  opened  only  when  his  death 
leaves  the  public  judgment  free  to  determine  under  what 
name  he  shall  go  down  to  future  ages,  —  as  the 
glory  or  the  shame  of  his  country.  Egyptian  e° 
judges  exhorted  their  kings  to  do  justly  and  love 
mercy.  Harm's  law  imposed  a  similar  duty  on  the  Hindu 
judge.  The  Roman  censor  could  degrade  any  man  from  his 
rank  or  tribe  for  misconduct ;  but  the  first  and  second  of 

1  Shit-king,  Pt.  II.  B.  in.  5.  *  Confucius  in  Chung-yung,  XXIX. 

8  Comment,  to  Ibid. ;  quoted  in  Pauthier's  transl. 


284  STRUCTURES. 

these  instances  relate  to  what  were,  doubtless,  largely  mat- 
ters of  ceremonial,  and  couched  in  formal  phraseology. 
The  jurisdiction  of  the  Roman  censor  never  reached  over 
the  imperial  person,  and  the  office  was  either  set  aside  by 
the  Caesars  or  else  made  a  part  of  their  functions.  But  the 
office  of  the  Chinese  censor  was  in  no  sense  a  formality ; 
he  was  appointed  to  maintain  real  watch  over  the  daily  and 
nightly  doings  of  the  Son  of  Heaven,  and,  in  the  name  of 
morality  and  the  laws,  to  remonstrate  and  reprove.  His 
office  was  the  sign  that  rulers  were  personally  accountable, 
while  ideally  absolute  ;  personally  imperfect,  while  theo- 
retically perfect.  He  mediated  between  the  idea  and  the 
fact,  —  the  common  sense  that  checked  and  balanced  idola- 
try of  a  personal  symbol.  The  necessity  was  perfectly  well 
understood,  and  something  similar  has  entered  into  the 
structure  of  all  Eastern  States,  with  a  real  force  to  which 
its  analogues  in  the  less  absolute  monarchies  of  the  West 
were  far  from  equivalent.  The  freedom  of  the  Chinese 
censors  is  very  great.1  It  goes  back  in  tradition  to  the 
words  of  the  Emperor  Yu  to  his  minister :  — 

"  When  I  am  doing  wrong  it  is  yours  to  correct  me  :  do  not  ap- 
prove me  to  my  face,  and  when  you  have  withdrawn  take  up  a  different 
tone."  2 

"  He  who  restrains  his  prince,"  says  Mencius,  "  loves  his 
prince." 3  The  record  of  the  censorship  is  perhaps  the 
most  creditable  thing  in  Chinese  history.  Though  a  recog- 
nized function  of  the  State,  its  task  was  a  perilous  one  ;  and 
instances  of  martyrdom  for  the  rights  of  the  weak  and  the 
supremacy  of  law  over  arbitrary  will  are  frequent.  The 
Emperor.  Kang-hi  published  a  collection  of  remonstrances, 
selected  from  all  ages  of  Chinese  history,  —  documents  for 
the  most  part  in  a  severely  circumspect  style,  as  of  men 

1  Duhalde,  I.  71,  250;  Le  Comte's  China.,  p.  255. 

2  Shu-king,  Pt.  II.  B.  iv.  8  Mencius,  I.  n.  4. 


GOVERNMENT.  28$ 

who  felt  great  danger,  yet  very  clear  and  strong.1  A  writer 
counsels  the  censor  thus  :  — 

"  The  thunder  issues  from  all  sides  of  the  throne  ;  a  syllable  may 
kindle  it,  and  it  may  carry  death  to  the  Empire's  end.  Meditate  day 
and  night  to  write  ten  words  of  a  remonstrance,  and  efface  six  of 
them."  2 

This  was  not  such  advice  as  was  likely  to  be  given  to  a 
Hebrew  prophet,  but  its  prudence  is  strictly  in  accord- 
ance with  Chinese  reverence  for  form  and  office,  and  by 
no  means  inconsistent  with  heroic  fidelity.3  The  arbitrary 
rule  of  Tsin  Chi-hwang-ti  forbade  criticism  of  the  Govern- 
ment. But  the  next  dynasty  (Han)  at  once  abrogated  a 
law  so  contrary  to  the  national  traditions.  It  is  always  in 
order  for  the  Emperor  of  China  to  be  addressed  by  his 
counsellors  in  the  spirit  of  the  Platonic  admonition  :  - 

"  You  are  created  for  the  sake  of  the  whole,  not  the  whole  for  the 
sake  of  you.  Take  good  heed  of  the  powers  of  justice,  for  a  day  will 
come  when  they  will  take  heed  of  you." 4 

III.  The  Confucian  Classics  take  precedence  of  political 
or  military  authority.     Confucius  has  been  called   Tothe 
the  real  Emperor  of  China.     His  disciplines  have  classical 
brought  Tartar  Yuens  and  Man-chu  Tsings  under 
the  power  of  systems  as  remote  as  possible  from  their  native 
Mongolic  traits.    The  literary  compilations  of  his  school  are 
studied  by  successive  dynasties  as  the  will  of  Heaven,  and 
published  on  a   scale  of  labor  and  expense  unrivalled  in 
the  enterprises  of  monarchs.     They  are  an  imperial  Bible, 
though    not   in   the    exclusive,    supernatural    sense   which 
Judaism  and  Christianity  have  given  to  the  word.     Digests 
of  their  substance  have  been  prepared  for  the  private  use 

1  Girard,  II.  307.  2  Ibid.,  308. 

8  In  the  Peking  Gazette  for  1873  will  be  found  an  instance  of  bold  censorship  punished, 
and  yet  repeated  without  delay,  calling  on  the  throne  to  humble  itself  on  account  of  the  public 
sufferings,  and  "  to  tremble  with  awe."  See  also  a  demand  made  by  the  censor  for  the  degra- 
dation of  the  high  officer  Ki-shen,  in  1843 ;  Martin,  I.  113. 

4  Plato,  Laws,  X. 


286  STRUCTURES. 

of  princes,  and  for  imperial  tuition,  not  only  by  the  doctors 
of  the  Han-lin,  but  by  literati,  whose  work  is  traceable  as 
far  back  as  the  beginning  of  our  era.1 

The  responsibility  of  a  "  Son  of  Heaven  "  to  such  a  stand- 
ard as  this  is  certainly  an  anomaly  in  "  autocracy."  Con- 
sider, for  instance,  Mencius's  doctrine  of  the  independence 
of  ministers,  and  their  claims  on  imperial  respect  :  — 

"  Superior  men  of  old  time,  if  received  with  the  utmost  respect  and 
polite  observance,  so  that  they  could  say  to  themselves  that  the  prince 
would  carry  their  words  into  practice,  would  take  office  with  him. 
Afterwards,  though  the  polite  demeanor  might  not  cease,  yet  if  their 
words  were  not  carried  into  practice  they  would  leave  him."  2 

Mencius  himself  came  a  thousand  le  to  wait  on  a  king, 
but  "  not  finding  in  him  a  ruler  to  suit  him,  he  took  his 
leave."  3  The  prince  who  does  not  listen  to  his  ministers 
is  "  a  robber  and  an  enemy."  4  The  Shu-king  abounds  in 
ministerial  counsels  to  monarchs,  and  in  recognitions  of 
their  authority  by  those  to  whom  they  are  addressed. 

A  king  (of  the  Shang  line)  who  had  passed  his  time  in 
silence,  fearing  that  he  should  disgrace  his  function,  says  : 

"  But  while  I  was  thinking  of  the  right  way,  I  dreamed  that  God 
gave  me  an  assistant  who  should  speak  for  me." 

Search  being  made,  the  great  Yu-e  is  found,  "  a  builder 
in  Foo-yen,"  and  forthwith  installed  prime  minister,  with 
exhortations  like  these  :  — 

"  Suppose  me  a  steel  weapon,  I  will  use  you  for  whetstone  ;  sup- 
pose me  a  stream,  I  will  use  you  for  a  boat ;  suppose  me  a  year  of 
drought,  I  will  use  you  for  a  copious  rain.  Open  your  mind  and 
enrich  mine.  Be  like  medicine,  which  will  not  cure  the  patient  if  it 
do  not  distress  him.  Think  of  me  as  one  walking  barefoot,  whose 
feet  are  sure  to  be  wounded  if  he  do  not  see  the  ground.  Cultivate 
me  ;  do  not  cast  me  away."  5 

"  Paou-hang  said,  *  If  I  cannot  make  my  sovereign  like  Yao  and 
Shun,  I  shall  feel  ashamed  as  if  I  were  beaten  in  the  market-place."6 

1  See  Wylie's  Account  of  Chin.  Lit.,  p.  145. 

2  Mencius,  VI.  11.  14.  »  Ibid.,  II.  n.  12.  *  Ibid.,  IV.  u.  3. 
6  Shu-king,  Pt.  IV.  B.  vui.                     «  Ibid. 


GOVERNMENT.  28/ 

E  Yin,  retiring  from  the  ministry,  thus  exhorts  the 
young  Emperor  on  his  accession  :  — 

"  Make  new  your  virtue  ;  make  daily  renewal.  Let  your  officers  be 
the  right  men,  hard  indeed  to  find.  The  only  rule  for  virtue  is  to  love 
goodness.  No  special  characteristics  can  be  laid  down  for  determining 
wh.it  is  right  ;  it  is  found  where  there  is  conformity  to  principles.  Do 
not  consider  yourself  so  great  that  you  hold  others  to  be  little.  If  the 
people  do  nofcfind  opportunity  to  develop  virtue,  the  prince  cannot  fulfil 
his  proper  work.1' 1 

The  Emperor  reads  in  Mencius  that  "  good  instructions 
are  better  than  good  government ; "  that  the  business  of 
the  ruler  is  "  to  sympathize  with  the  people ; "  that  the 
people  looked  to  the  great  T'ang  as  men  "  look  to  clouds 
and  rainbows  after  a  drought ; "  that  the  peace  of  the  Em- 
pire lies  in  the  performance  by  every  one  of  his  nearest 
duties.2  He  is  warned  by  Confucius  that  the  ruin  of  a 
country  is  in  one  sentence,  —  "a  ruler  whose  words  are  not 
good,  yet  with  no  one  to  oppose  them  ; "  3  and  taught  that 
"  to  govern  means  to  rectify  ; "  that  every  one  is  a  ruler 
who  discharges  his  filial  and  brotherly  duties  ;  that  he  who 
cannot  govern  himself  cannot  govern  others,  and  has,  prop- 
erly, nothing  to  do  with  governing ;  that  they  who  are  far 
from  the  good  ruler  look  to  him  in  love,  and  they  who  are 
near  are  never  wearied  with  him.4 

Both  the  Shi-king  and  the  Shu-king  are  one  long  enforce- 
ment, by  history,  legend,  moral  precept,  sermon,  and  song, 
of  the  lesson  that  the  virtuous  ruler  is  the  salvation,  and 
the  selfish  one  the  ruin,  of  the  nation,  by  supreme  laws  of 
retribution  that  know  no  distinction  of  persons,  and  never 
fail  to  "  find  the  way  to  their  mark." 

IV.  These  limitations  do  not  execute  themselves,  and 
may,  as  personal  restraints,  be  less  real  than  theo-  Tothe 
retical.     But  the  responsibility  of  the  Emperor  to  Pe°Ple- 
the  people  is  real.     It  is  a  fixed  principle  of  Chinese  tra- 

1  Shu-king,  Pt.  IV.  B.  vi. 

2  Mencius,  VII.  i.  ,4  ;  I.  H.  4;   III.n.  5;  IV.  i.  11. 

3  Lunyu,  XIII.  15.  «  Ibid.,  XII.  17;  II.  21;  XIII.  13;  Chung  Yung,  XXIX. 


288  STRUCTURES. 

dition  that  he  is  not  the  master  of  slaves,  but  the  father 
of  a  household  which  tests  his  legitimacy  by  his  behavior. 
The  end  of  government  is  the  good  of  the  people.  For 
this  the  imperial  power  itself  was  instituted.1  Mencius 
even  says,  "  The  people  are  the  most  important  ele- 
ment in  the  nation,  the  spirits  of  the  land  and  grain  the 
next ;  the  Emperor  the  least."  2  Royal  functions  centre  in 
this  final  cause.  To  divide  and  redeem  the  land,  to  organ- 
ize its  distribution  for  the  common  good,  to  fix  times  for  all 
occupations,  and  to  provide  all  persons  with  sustenance 
and  relief,  with  work  and  education  ;  to  care  especially  for 
the  poor  and  the  old,  for  orphans  and  widows,  and  right 
all  injustice,  giving  ear  to  the  humblest  sufferer,  —  com- 
prise the  sum  of  imperial  duty  in  the  oldest  books.3  So 
distinctly  does  this  fact  lie  in  the  national  mind,  that  the 
earliest  (mythical)  monarchs  were  believed  to  have  been 
elected  by  the  people.4'  Further  down,  the  son  of  Yu  is 
made  his  successor  by  the  choice  of  the  chiefs.5  Later 
still,  Mencius  declares  the  universal  law  that,  — 

"  The  Emperor  can  present  a  man  to  Heaven,  but  he  cannot  make 
Heaven  give  that  man  the  Empire.  Yao  presented  Shun  to  Heaven, 
and  the  people  accepted  him.  Heaven  does  not  speak.  It  simply  in- 
dicated its  will  by  his  personal  conduct  and  his  conduct  of  affairs."6 

Being  the  representative  of  Heaven  only  through  his 
virtue,  the  Emperor  is  not  properly  a  hereditary  ruler  ;  and, 
though  in  point  of  fact  the  dynasties  have  followed  that 
rule,  it  has  been  antagonized  by  the  incessant  breaks  of 
revolution.  The  idea  does  not  rest  on  birth.  Yu  calls 
together  his  best  men  to  consult  on  the  succession. 

All  through  the  Shu-king  the  popular  voice  is  the  sign 
of  divine  approval.  That  the  ruler  must  recognize  this  is 
the  burden  of  instruction. 

*  Shu-king,  Pt.  IV.  B.  vin.  2.  *  Menc.,  VII.  n.  14. 

a  See  also  Menc.,  I.,  i.  7.  4  See  Wuttke,  II.  173. 

6  Menc.,  V.  i.  6.  fl  Ibid.,  V.  i.  5. 


GOVERNMENT. 


289 


"Heaven  hears  and  sees  as  the  people  hear  and  see.  Heaven 
shows  its  approval  or  its  wrath,  as  the  people  theirs  :  such  connection 
is  there  between  the  upper  and  the  lower  worlds.  How  reverent  ought 
the  masters  of  earth  to  be  !  "  1 

"  What  one  only  desires  cannot  be  executed  ;  to  oppose  the  whole 
brings  evil.  When  the  masses  are  aroused,  resistance  is  vain."  2 

In  the  "  Book  of  Poetry,"  it  is  said  :  — 

"  Before  the  sovereigns  of  the  Yin  dynasty  had  lost  the  hearts  of 
the  people,  they  could  appear  before  God.  Take  warning  from  them. 
The  great  decree  is  not  easily  preserved.  This  shows  that,  by  gaining 
the  people,  the  kingdom  is  gained  ;  and,  by  losing  the  people,  the  king- 
dom is  lost."  8 

"  When  a  prince  loves  what  the  people  loves,  and  hates  what  they 
hate,  then  is  he  the  parent  of  the  people."4 

"  To  close  the  people's  mouths  is  more  dangerous  than  to  dam  the 
torrent."  5 

"  Do  not  be  ashamed  to  ask  counsel  from  those  who  carry  grass  on 
their  shoulders,  and  gather  firewood."  6 

In  the  treatment  of  the  people,  the  highest  ideal  of 
moral  fitness,  and  the  "Golden  Rule,"  are  the  tests  of 
imperial  duty.7 

No  republic  ever  proclaimed  a  representative  responsibil- 
ity more  absolutely. 

Nor  is  the  Chinese  ark  too  holy  to  be  touched  by  uncon- 
secrated  hands.  Yao  chooses  Shun  for  his  successor,  —  a. 
poor  man  who  had  been  a  common  farmer,  a  potter,  and  a 
fisherman,8  who  was  son  of  a  blind  and  bad  father,  and 
brother  of  a  rebel.  Yu  and  Tseih  were  husbandmen,  and  at- 
tained the  Empire.9  "  Yu  lived  in  a  mean  house,  and  spent 
his  strength  on  the  water  channels."10  The  founders  of 
dynasties  by  revolution  in  Chinese  history  are  generally 
men  of  humble  origin.  "  Yao  and  Shun,"  says  Mencius, 


Shn-king,  Pt.  II.    B.  in.  7. 

Plath,  in  Bay.  Ak.  X.  470. 

Shi-king,  quoted  in  Takio,  X.  3. 

Old  proverb ;  quoted  in  Shi-king,  III.  B.  IT.  10. 

Menc.,  II.  i.  8 ;  VI.  n.  15.  9  Lunyu,  XIV.  6. 

19 


«  Tahio,  X.  i. 

5  Sseki,  quoted  by  Plath. 

7  Tahio,  X.  i,  2. 

w  Ibid.,  VIII.  21. 


2QO  STRUCTURES. 

"were  just  the  same  as  other  men.  All  men  can  become 
Yaos  and  Shuns."  1 

The  Tcheou-li  mentions  three  cases  in  which  the  people 
are  called  to  give  advice  :  when  the  kingdom  is  in  danger ; 
when  a  city  is  to  be  built ;  when  a  prince  is  to  be  installed, 
an  heir  being  wanting,2  —  all  of  these  being  emergencies  that 
call  for  a  return  to  the  recognized  sources  of  government. 
The  Tcheou-li  was  certainly  written  in  the  bloom  of  Chi- 
nese imperialism,  and  the  testimony  to  traces  of  popular 
sovereignty  is  therefore  more  valuable  than  any  isolated 
facts  to  the  same  effect,  which  might  have  been  exceptional. 
The  same  Institutes  mention  consultation  of  the  people  in 
order  to  determine  penalties  in  cases  of  capital  crime.3 

In  what  ways  the  will  of  the  people,  thus  affirmed  to  be 

authoritative,  can  be  fully  ascertained  except  by 

popular      observation  of  their  condition,  the  ballot  being  un- 

wiiiisex-    known,  is   not  easy  to   say.     But  there  has   never 

pressed. 

been  wanting  such  expression  of  it  as  could  be 
given  by  speech  of  leading  men,  by  satires,  pasquinades, 
and  popular  demonstrations.  An  idea  so  fundamental  to 
the  State  does  not  lack  channels  of  communication.  Re- 
monstrances and  reproofs  to  Government  by  unofficial  per- 
sons are  as  common  as  those  of  censors  and  mandarins.4 
.Many  satires,  complaints,  and  indignant  or  pathetic  appeals 
are  preserved  in  the  Shi-king.  The  protest  against  impe- 
officiaiin  r^  caPrice  nas  been  heard  in  the  free  speech  of 
depen-  courageous  ministers  whenever  there  was  need. 

There  is  probably  no  nation  where  history  is  more 
fertile  in  examples  of  such  independence,  in  face  of  ex- 
treme peril,  than  China.  Confucius  was  not  prevented  by 
his  rules  of  obsequious  bearing  toward  princes  from  insist- 
ing on  proper  deference  to  the  person  of  the  teacher,  and 

1  Menc.,  IV.  11.  32 ;  VI.  n.  2.  »  Tckeou-li,  XXXV.  17.  s  Ibid.,  25,  26. 

4  Pfitzmaier  gives  extracts  from  some  of  these,  dating  in  the  Han ;  and  Wuttke  has  some 
account  of  this  branch  of  popular  expression,  Gesch.  des  Heidenth.  II.  192. 


GOVERNMENT.  2QI 

refused  to  visit  a  prince  who  neglected  to  pay  him  this  trib- 
ute. According  to  the  whole  teaching  of  Confucius  and 
Mencius,  the  official  should  only  obey  orders  when  they 
are  right ;  and,  even  if  in  danger  of  losing  his  head,  must 
not  forget  his  duty. 

"  There  is  no  one  in  T'se  who  speaks  to  the  King  about  benevo- 
lence and  righteousness.  Are  they  silent  because  they  do  not  think 
these  admirable  ?  No  ;  but  in  their  hearts  they  say,  *  This  man  is  not 
fit  to  be  spoken  with  about  benevolence  and  righteousness.'  Thus 
they  manifest  the  greatest  possible  disrespect.  I  do  not  dare  to  set 
forth  before  the  king  any  ways  but  those  of  Yao  and  Shun.  '  Let 
rulers  have  their  wealth,'  said  the  philosopher  T'sang  :  « I  have  my 
benevolence.  Let  them  have  their  nobility  :  I  have  my  righteousness. 
Wherein  should  I  feel  inferior  to  them  ? '  Shall  we  say  that  these  sen- 
timents are  not  right  ?  The  prince  who  does  not  honor  the  virtues,  and 
delight  in  their  ways,  is  not  worth  having  to  do  with."  1 

"To  urge  one's  sovereign  to  difficult  achievements  is  showing  re- 
spect for  him.  To  set  before  him  what  is  good,  and  repress  his  perver- 
sities, is  showing  reverence  to  him.  He  who  does  not  do  thus,  plays 
the  thief  with  his  sovereign."2 

"  One's  principles  must  appear  along  with  one's  person.  One's 
person  must  vanish  along  with  one's  principles.  I  have  not  heard  of 
one's  principles  being  dependent  for  their  manifestation  on  other 
men."3 

"Once  rectify  the  prince,  and  the  kingdom  will  be  settled.  Only 
the  great  men  can  do  this."4 

"  Can  there  be  loyalty  which  does  not  lead  to  the  instruction  of  its 
object?"6 

"  Tse-loo  asked  how  a  sovereign  should  be  -served.  The  Master 
said,  l  Do  not  impose  on  him,  and  moreover  withstand  him  to  his 
face.' "e 

"  The  man  who,  in  the  view  of  gain,  thinks  of  righteousness,  who  in 
view  of  danger  is  prepared  to  give  up  his  life,  and  who  does  not  forget 
a  promise,  however  long  past,  such  a  man  maybe  reckoned  a  complete 
man  (i.e.  fit  for  a  minister)."7 

"  The  true  scholar  will  sacrifice  his  life  to  preserve  his  virtue 
complete."8 

1  Menc,  II.  n.  2.  «  Ibid.,  IV. i.  i.  «  Ibid.,  VII.  i.  42. 

«  Ibid.,  IV.    i.  ao.  6  Lunyn,  XIV.  8.  «  Ibid.,  23. 

7  Ibid.,  13.  «  Ibid.,  XV.  8. 


2Q2  STRUCTURES. 

"  Men  of  principle  are  sure  to  be  bold,  though  the  bold  may  not 
always  be  men  of  principle."1 

In  the  Shu-king  the  same  ideal  is  constantly  presented. 

"  E  Yin,  minister  of  a  young  Shang  monarch,  having  dared  to 
imprison  him  for  a  season  for  the  public  good,  receives  him  on  his 
repentance,  with  head  bowed  to  the  ground  before  the  majesty  of  the 
office,  saying,  '  O  King,  do  justly,  and  I  shall  respond  to  your  virtue 
with  endless  devotion.  Let  the  One  man  be  greatly  good,  and  the 
myriad  regions  will  be  righted  by  his  endeavors.'  "  2 

"  Tsoo  E  proclaimed  to  the  tyrant  Chow-sin  (twelfth  century  B.C.) 
that  his  dissoluteness  was  bringing  the  line  of  Yin  to  destruction. 
'On  this  account  there  is  famine  in  the  land  and  general  disorder. 
The  people  cry,  "  Why  does  not  Heaven  send  down  its  wrath  ?  Why 
dees  not  some  one  appear  with  its  great  decree  ?  What  has  this  King 
to  do  with  us  ? "  '  The  King  said,  *  Is  not  my  life  secured  by  decree  of 
Heaven? '  Tsoo  E  returned  and  said,  'Your  many  crimes  are  regis- 
tered above.  Can  you  speak  of  your  fate  as  if  you  had  given  it  in 
charge  to  Heaven  ?  The  end  of  Yin  is  at  hand.'  "  3 

Mencius  denounces  the  rulers  of  his  day  in  the  broadest 
terms  :  — 

"  Never  was  there  a  time  farther  than  the  present  from  the  appear- 
ance of  a  true  ruler;  never  a  time  when  the  sufferings  of  the  people 
from  oppressive  government  were  more  intense  than  now."  4 

"  King  Seu-en  said  to  Mencius  :  '  May  a  minister  put  his  sovereign 
to  death  ? '  Mencius  said  :  '  He  who  outrages  righteousness  and  love 
is  a  ruffian.  I  have  heard  of  the  cutting  off  of  the  fellow  Chow,  but  I 
have  not  heard  of  putting  a  sovereign  to  death,  in  his  case.'  "  5 

"  A  sovereign  who  oppresses  his  people  will  be  slain,  and  his  kingdom 
will  perish."  6 

"  When  a  prince  endangers  the  altars  of  the  spirits  of  the  land  and 
grain  he  is  changed,  and  another  is  appointed  in  his  place." ' 

Wan-te,  in  the  second  century,  B.C.,  issued  an  edict, 
abrogating  a  law  against  freedom  of  speech,  in  which  he 
says :  — 

1  Lunyu,  XIV.  5 ;    Passages  like  XIV.  4,  and  XV.  6,  intimating  that  in  times  when  bad 
government  prevails  a  wise  man  would  neither  take  office  nor  always  express  his  principles  in 
words,  though  in  action  he  would  be  bold  and  straightforward  as  an  arrow,  seem  to  mean  sim- 
ply that  common  sense  must  choose  the  sort  of  protest  most  likely  to  be  of  use. 

2  Shu-king,  Pt.  IV.,  B.  v.  s  Ibid.,  B.  x;  see  also  B.  xi.  *  Menc.,  II.  i.  i- 

*  Ibid-,  I.  n.  8.  °  Ibid.,  IV.  i.  2.  7  Ibid.,  VII.  11.  14- 


GOVERNMENT.  2Q3 

"  There  exists  a  law  severely  punishing  those  who  criticise  the 
ruler.  The  effect  is  that  the  people  and  ministers  dare  not  express 
their  honest  thought  about  us,  and  that  we  are  thus  prevented  from 
being  informed  of  our  faults  and  errors.  How  will  superior  men 
from  foreign  countries  come  to  enlighten  us  with  their  counsels  ?  I 
abrogate  that  law." 

Practically,  imperial  responsibility  to  the  people  resides 
in  the  right  of  rebellion.  This  at  once  distinguishes  Thg 
the  Chinese  theory  of  government  from  that  of  of  rebei- 
4<  the  divine  right  of  kings,"  and  shows  that  long  hon' 
before  representative  systems,  or  the  rule  of  the  ballot,  the 
caprices  of  arbitrary  power  were  held  in  check  by  a  well- 
understood  prerogative  in  the  interest  of  the  community. 
The  ultimate  source  of  rights  and  the  final  appeal  against 
wrongs  were  in  the  whole  people.  "  Stand  in  awe  of  the 
people,"  is  the  counsel  of  the  Shu-king  to  rulers.1  The 
right  of  rebellion  is  not  only  always  asserted  in  theory,  but 
has  been  resorted  to  by  the  masses  in  all  ages  of  Chinese 
history  ;  and  the  chiefs  who  have  led  in  these  insurrections 
against  imperial  despotism  —  Woo  Tang,  Lui-yu,  Tai-tsu  — 
are  the  heroes  of  national  gratitude  and  praise.  The  Chinese 
have  been  called  "  the  least  revolutionary  but  the  most 
rebellious  of  peoples."  2  Most  dynasties  have  ended  in  this 
way.  The  miseries  of  poverty  and  excessive  taxation  have 
been  a  fertile  source  of  popular  insurrection,  —  a  phenome- 
non so  frequent  that  nothing  but  the  innate  reluctance  of 
the  Mongolian  mind  to  assume  entire  self-guidance  can 
explain  the  absence  of  republican  institutions  from  the 
history  of  a  people  so  apt  for  democratic  appeal.  The 
very  beggars  of  Pe-king  have  organized  a  right  of  revo- 
lution. 

The  practical  acceptance  of  this  right  is  universal.  Not 
only  is  China,  like  Turkey,  undermined  by  secret  associa- 
tions, —  many  of  them  aiming  at  the  overthrow  of  the  ex- 

1  Shu-king,  V.  B.  xii.  13.  a  Meadows,  p.  25. 


294  STRUCTURES. 

isting  dynasty,  —  but  the  people  are  systematically  educated 
in  the  knowledge  of  their  reserved  rights.  The  old  songs 
and  satires  of  the  Shi-king,  abounding  more  in  dispraise  of 
rulers  than  in  their  praise  ;  the  legends  and  speeches  of  the 
Shu-king,  enforcing  the  duty  of  Government  to  respect  the 
people's  voice  and  dread  their  indignation,  —  are  constantly 
read  in  the  schools.  The  great  historical  uprisings  ;  the 
appeals  of  insurgent  princes  to  the  people  ;  the  overthrow 
of  dynasties  by  shoemakers,  scullions,  school-masters,  and 
monastery  boys,  —  leading  troops  of  ill-armed,  famine- 
maddened  peasants,1  —  are  treated  in  the  examination 
themes  as  freely  as  the  rest  of  Chinese  history.  The  praises 
of  tyrannicide  stand  in  the  text-books  of  law  and  ethics, 
which  everywhere  throw  prince  and  people  back  of  all  dis- 
tinctions of  rank,  upon  moral  sovereignty  and  the  instincts 
of  humanity  and  justice,  reiterating  that  the  selfish  oppres- 
sive ruler  is  no  ruler,  and  that  he  must,  in  the  very  name 
of  government  itself,  be  overthrown. 

The  prevailing  notion  of  "  Oriental  autocracy,"  as  pro- 
"  oriental  tectmS  tne  caprices  of  despots  against  all  manifes- 
autocra-  tation  of  public  feeling  and  every  personal  safe- 
guard, breaks  down  on  the  fact  that  the  right  of 
rebellion  enters  into  the  very  texture  of  Chinese  edu- 
cation, in  forms  so  plain  and  direct  that  they  would  have 
'  involved  death  even  to  their  theoretic  supporter  in  any 
period  or  state  under  the  regime,  so  long  prevalent  in 
Europe,  of  the  divine  right  of  kings.  Hardly  shall  we  find 
a  national  history  in  which  there  is  so  little  unresisted  per- 
manent tyranny,  however  cruel  may  have  been  the  sudden 
outbreaks  of  power,  as  in  China.  Whenever  foreigners 
have  invaded  the  throne,  the  patriotic  masses  have  given 
the  intruders  no  rest.  The  late  rebellion  is  no  strange 
experience  for  the  Chinese,  who  are  used  to  resisting,  not 

1  See  Pfitzmaier's  articles  on  the  Fall  of  the  T'sin   Dynasty,  in   Wien  Akad.,  July,  1859. 
Chinese  Re(>os.,  1842,  pp.  592-614,  on  the  rise  of  the  Ming;  Brine  on  the  Tai-ping  Rebellion. 


GOVERNMENT. 


295 


only  the  violation  of  the  ancient  rules  on  which  their 
civilization  rests,  but  the  signs  of  incapacity  in  their  Gov- 
ernment to  uphold  its  own  dignity  and  fulfil  its  proper 
functions.  In  tenacious  adherence  to  their  ancient  liber- 
ties they  resemble  their  European  analogues,  the  laborious, 
conscientious,  courageous  Dutch.  The  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence issued  by  these  patriots  against  Spanish  rule, 
in  1581,  reads  like  an  extract  from  Mencius  :  — 

"  If  a  prince  is  appointed  by  God  over  the  land,  it  is  to  protect 
them  from  harm,  even  as  a  shepherd  to  the  guardianship  of  his 
flock.  .  The  subjects  are  not  appointed  by  God  for  the  behoof  of  the 
prince,  but  the  prince  for  his  subjects,  —  without  whom  he  is  no 
prince." 

At  the  same  time  the  severest  punishments  are  levelled 
in  Chinese  law  and  precept  against  treason,  slaying  or 
expulsion  of  a  ruler,  and  all  offences  against  that  sanctity 
of  his  person  which  only  palpable  moral  unfitness  can 
annul. 

In  truth,  the  root  idea  of  the  Chinese  State  is  a  mutu- 
ality of  rights  and  interests  between  prince  and  Mutuality 
people  as  the  two  terms  of  one  divine  order,  neither  ^Tknd 
of  which  can  fail  of  its  part  without  defeating  the  Pe°Ple- 
whole.  The  primitive  simplicity  of  this  recognition  of 
justice  has  not  unfolded  into  those  practical  mediations 
which  political  experience  has  elsewhere  devised  for  regu- 
lating and  correcting  the  relations  between  ruler  and  ruled, 
and  which  have  ultimately  identified  the  two  in  pure  self- 
government  by  the  people.  On  both  sides  the  corrective 
force  is  directly  destructive  of  its  opposite.  The  prince 
compels  obedience  by  peremptory  edict,  without  constitu- 
tional check  or  balance,  and  the  people  make  resistance  or 
compel  justice  solely  by  resort  to  rebellion,  unmediated  by 
elective  processes  or  limitary  laws.  This  statement  must 
of  course  be  qualified  by  the  references  already  made  to 
abiding  instincts  and  forces,  which  serve  a  kindred  purpose 


STRUCTURES. 

with  such  mediations.  But,  on  the  whole,  the  method  is  as 
simplistic  as  it  is  sincere.  It  is  the  most  direct  path  of  a 
religious  consciousness  of  the  right  to  be  governed  and  the 
duty  to  be  led  by  the  best,  maintaining  its  ground  against 
perversion,  while  as  yet  ignorant  of  the  means  by  which 
changes  can  be  made  steady  and  constructive.  These 
contrasted  means,  so  far  as  they  are  now  discerned,  we  sum 
with  repre-  Up  under  the  term  representative  self-government, 
govern-  They  involve  an  analysis  of  the  social  body  which 
reaches  to  its  ultimate  molecules  ;  to  the  indi- 
vidual, his  functions,  duties,  rights.  In  the  East,  society 
is  still  unanalyzed.  Only  the  grand  antithesis  is  recognized 
of  unity  in  the  ruling  force  and  multiplicity  in  the  ruled, 
but  without  the  mediating  Jterm  of  individuality,  through 
which  the  interests  of  both  are  harmonized  in  the  justice 
that  guarantees  fair  hearing  and  full  opportunity  for  all. 

What  concerns  us  most  is  to  note  the  development,  out 
of  the  oldest  type  of  social  life,  and  in  democratico- 
Of  the  cw-  monarchical  form,  of  the  idea  of  universal  service 
nese  pohu-  through  government  by  the  best,  and  the  rule  of  fit- 
ness to  functions  as  its  practical  interpreter.  The 
association  of  this  idea  with  responsibility  to  the  people  as  a 
whole,  seems  natural  enough,  when  we  consider  its  truly 
prophetic  intimation  of  that  yet  unfulfilled  ideal  of  freedom 
to  which  the  latest  republic,  as  well  as  the  earliest  mon- 
archy, must  aspire. 

I  am  therefore  far  from  allowing  that  "  there  is,  properly, 
The  people  no  people  in  China,"  in  the  sense  of  a  body-politic, 
tile  "°body  with  definite  meaning  and  function,  "  but  only  a 
politic."  somewhat,  crude  and  undeveloped,  fitly  represented 
in  its  written  ideograph  as  a  wild  plant,  vegetating  with- 
out insight,  and  'forming  only  the  body  of  the  State,  of 
which  the  prince  is  the  soul."  *  The  rights  already  men- 

1  Plath's  Confucius.  The  current  term  for  "  the  masses  "  is  wan-min,  the  myriad 
people. 


GOVERNMENT. 

tioned,  and  the  recognized  responsibilities  of  the  State, 
indicate  not  only  that  the  idea  of  "  the  people"  so  dear 
to  the  classical  writers  and  teachers  of  China,  involves  a 
vital  force  and  real  whole  ;  but  that  so  completely  do  per- 
sonal distinctions  rnerge  in  the  sense  of  universal  equality 
for  the  purposes  of  justice,  as  the  soul  of  this  idea,  that 
the  Emperor  himself,  the  fountain  of  honors,  cannot  sub- 
stitute his  own  interest  for  the  public  good  without  a 
wide-spread  protest,  and  all  inherent  and  inalienable  dis- 
tinctions like  the  ranks  and  castes  of  Aryan  society  are 
unknown. 

Offices,  titles,  temporary  privileges,  are  inevitable,  and 
represent  the  necessity  for  some  kind  of  grading 
in  the  plane  of  social  respect.  Probably  they  are  Equallty< 
all  the  more  conspicuous  and  complex  because  tJiey  alone 
represent  it.  The  instinct  is  satisfied,  without  essential 
differences  of  class,  by  shadings  of  functional  importance, 
under  tests  of  fitness.  In  the  old  fetes  described  in  the 
Shu-king,  no  distinctions  of  rank  are  recognized,  differences 
of  station  being  referred  to  no  other  ground  than  utility  and 
convenience.  Nothing  is  commoner  in  China  than  radical 
protest  against  even  these,  by  writers  and  philosophers, 
whose  errors  are  usually  confuted  by  the  wiser  national 
creed,  and  the  distinctions  involved  in  social  order  recon- 
ciled with  real  equalities.  Mencius,  for  example,  replies  to 
one  who  argued  from  the  times  when  the  Emperor  ploughed 
with  his  own  hands  and  prepared  his  own  meal,  like  other 
men,  while  he  carried  on  the  government,  —  by  convincing 
him  of  the  necessity  for  a  division  of  labor,  and  by  putting 
the  authority  of  government  itself  on  this  ground,  in  a 
sentence  of  profound  and  enduring  meaning  :  — 

"Great  men  have  their  proper  business,  and  little  men  have  theirs. 
If  every  man  must  make  his  tools  before  he  uses  them,  the  whole  Em- 
pire would  be  kept  running  about  on  the  roads.  Hence  the  saying, 
*  Some  labor  with  their  minds,  and  some  with  their  bodily  strength. 


298  STRUCTURES. 

They  who  labor  with  their  minds  direct  others  :  they  who  labor  (only) 
with  their  strength  are  directed  by  others.'  "  x 

This  characteristic  logic  goes  far  towards  explaining  the 
Absence  of  remarkable  exception  afforded  by  China  to  the 
other  great  primitive  civilizations,  in  its  entire  free- 
dom from  caste.  The  fact  itself  seems  at  first  to  contra- 
dict that  view  of  the  origin  of  castes,  which  ascribes  them 
to  the  force  of  conditions  natural  to  the  early  stages  of 
society.  In  the  volume  on  India,  I  have  defined  them  as 
the  result  of  an  early  effort  at  the  organization  of  labor 
under  the  influence  of  the  religious  idea,  considered  as 
guide  to  a  determination  of  the  comparative  values  of  func- 
tions for  the  general  good.  This  given,  the  secondary 
agencies  of  conquest  and  tradition,  and  the  powers  of  a 
separate  priesthood,  accomplished  the  rest.  But  religion 
in  China,  instead  of  influencing  the  organization  of  labor, 
has  been  absorbed- in  it  and  constituted  by  it.  Work  is 
not  estimated  and  distributed  by  an  ideal  above  itself :  it  is 
the  ideal.  The  result  is  obvious.  No  contemplative  class 
could  be  formed  at  the  top  of  the  social  scale  to  hold  a  body 
of  sacred  traditions  by  supernatural  right  ;  no  contempt  of 
physical  industry  could  remand  the  industrial  class  to  the 
bottom  of  that  scale ;  no  expansion  by  conquest  made  the 
soldier  a  higher  power  of  national  defence  than  the  peace- 
ful pioneers  of  labor  ;  no  separation  of  interests  could  arise 
in  a  commonwealth  of  industry  to  put  the  trader  perma- 
nently above  the  farmer  or  the  artisan.  In  place  of  the 
fiction  of  essential  difference  between  classes,  the  realities 
of  productive  force  were  in  honor ;  the  producer  of  univer- 
sal uses  and  economies  could  nowhere  be  ignored  ;  and  if 
literary  culture,  which  was  held  to  be  the  culmination  of 
ethical  and  social  wisdom,  was  made  the  ground  of  highest 
social  respect,  it  must  be  remembered  that  its  substance 
was  democratic,  —  the  literary  class  being  recruited  from  the 

*  Menc.  III.  i.  4- 


GOVERNMENT.  299 

people,  —  and  that  its  gates  were  open  to  fair  competition 
for  rewards,  which,  as  the  fruit  of  honest  toils,  educated 
the  whole  nation  in  self-respect.  The  secret  of  this  Chi- 
nese democracy  is  a  religion  of  work.  Labor  and  freedom 
go  hand  in  hand.  For  society  cannot  escape  the  spiritual 
law,  that  liberty  is  only  in  patient  conformity  to  the  condi- 
tions of  Nature. 

Hereditary  rank  is  contrary  to  the  Chinese  social  theory  ; 
and  even  the  prince,  usually  with  the  advice  of  ofhered. 
his  ministers,  can  nominate  his  successor  from  itary  right. 
among  his  sons.  There  have  been  periods  when  the  he- 
reditary principle  received  great  expansion  ;  but  these  pe- 
riods—  and  notably  that  of  the  later  Tcheou,  in  whose 
feudalism  it  took  root  —  are  regarded  as  the  product  of  a 
perverted  state  of  society.  It  is  traced  by  Chinese  writers 
to  the  reduction  of  the  people  to  a  condition  of  dependence 
on  great  officials,  who  were  paid,  not  from  the  total  reve- 
nue, but  in  rights  of  .attachment  on  the  soil  and  its  prod- 
ucts, to  be  levied  directly  on  the  laborer.1  The  protest 
against  the  principle  of  entail  is  declared  to  have  been  con- 
stant and  strong,  even  while  the  process  of  enfeoffment 
was  going  on.  Confucius  and  Mencius,  who  belong  to 
that  epoch,  insist  that,  in  imperial  succession,  virtue  must 
take  precedence  of  hereditary  right.2  The  introduction  of 
eunuchs  into  court  offices  is  believed  to  have  been  in  part  a 
plan  to  get  rid  of  the  latter  principle.3  Where  it  still 
remains,  as  in  certain  privileged  classes,  it  confers  no  real 
power  beyond  a  certain  social  respect.4 

Equally  vain  has  been  the  effort  to  establish  primogen- 
iture. It  was  prevented  by  Wu-ti  in  the  second  century, 
B.C.  ;  and  the  eldest  son  was  allowed  no  more  than  half 
the  paternal  estate.5  Fortunes  seldom  descend  in  families, 
and  all  professions  are  free. 

1  Biot,  Mem.  de  la  Constit.  Polit.  de  la  Chine  au  Xllme  Silcle  pp.  28,  29. 

2  Menc.  V.  i.  6 ;  also  Plath,  Bay.  Akad.  X.  535. 

3  Biot,  from  Matouanlin.  *  Williams,  I.  316.  6  Wuttke,  II.  151. 


3OO  STRUCTURES. 

If  the  old  titles  of  feudal  times  which  figure  in  the  An- 
nals, and  are  quaintly  translated  by  the  terms,  "  duke," 
"count,"  "baron,"  "knight,"  have  not  quite  disappeared, 
yet  the  rank  of  noble,  as  now  dispensed,  carries  no  perma- 
nent authority,  nor  even  influence  ;  nor  any  immunities, 
other  than  such  as  may  be  specially  granted  as  reward 
for  public  services  or  literary  merit,  or  in  view  of  the 
honor  that  flows  so  freely  in  the  East  upon  children  from 
the  virtue  of  their  fathers.  Officials  of  distinction,  wise 
and  virtuous  dead,  and  pre-eminently  the  family  of  Confu- 
cius, have  been  ennobled.  Females  as  well  as  males 
receive  this  honor.  It  has  been  liberally  conferred,  and  is 
naturally  enough  sold  in  times  of  financial  distress.  In 
the  second  century,  B.C.,  the  whole  people  were  ennobled 
as  a  means  of  attaching  them  to  the  dynasty  of  Han.1 
The  ennobled  classes  are  submerged  in  the  general  equal- 
ity. Wealth  and  ability  determine  influence  in  China  as 
well  as  in  America,  and  the  highest  posts  are  continually 
supplied  from  the  humblest  conditions  of  social  life.  The 
assurance  that  public  good  is  the  final  cause  of  government 
is  not  disturbed  by  the  grade  of  honor  due  to  the  special 
color  of  a  mandarin's  cap-button,  or  peacock's  feather,  or  a 
flight  to  right  and  left  before  the  official  whip  that  precedes 
his  sedan.  In  the  ritual  laws  there  are  rules  of  social  pre- 
cedence, based  on  estimates  of  the  respective  values  of  occu- 
pations, but  nowise  inclining  to  caste.  And  observe  the 
order:  (i)  Literati  ;  (2)  Husbandmen  ;  (3)  Manufacturers  ; 
(4)  Merchants.2  Again,  among  husbandmen,  the  producers 
of  grains  take  precedence  of  gardeners  or  fruiterers.  A 
few  classes  are  specially  marked  with  social  contempt,  such 
as  jugglers,  actors,  executioners,  police-runners,  beggars, 
aliens,  slaves  ;  but  their  disqualifications,  however  discred- 
itable to  the  community,  are  by  no  means  crushing  or  radi- 
cal, and  affect,  after  all,  but  a  small  portion  of  the  body 
politic.3 

1  Kidd's  China,  p.  261.  *  Davis,  ch.  viii.  3  Williams,  I.  322. 


GOVERNMENT. 


301 


The  difference  of  Chinese  traditions  of  social  order  from 
those  of  Japan  is  radical.  Japan  has  been  aristo- 
cratic, China  democratic.  Although  so  largely 
under  Chinese  influence  for  a  thousand  years,  Japanese 
society  fixed  every  man's  condition  irrevocably,  and  the 
government  was  a  close  corporation  of  nobles.  It  has 
been  even  called  "  a  despotism  tempered  by  assassination." 
No  political  reward  was  offered  to  literary  attainment,  and 
the  military  class  was  in  a  sense  supreme.  The  abandon- 
ment of  feudal  rights  by  the  daimios,  in  order  "  to  enable 
their  country  to  take  its  place  by  the  side  of  other  nations," 
the  recognition  of  the  right  of  petition,  and  of  laws  as  the 
basis  of  government,  are  late  revolutionary  results,  while  in 
China  these  popular  liberties  are  traditional. 


Slavery. 


The  earlier  periods  of  Chinese  history  yield  no  signs  of 
the  existence  of  personal  slavery.1  The  earliest 
mention  of  slaves  (mi)  belongs  to  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, B.C.,  at  which  time  this  class  consisted  only  of  public 
convicts,  doomed  to  penal  labors  for  such  crimes  as  rebel- 
lion, or  as  prisoners  of  war.2  Old  men  and  children  were 
exempted.  In  the  time  of  the  Han,  the  number  of  such 
State  convicts  was  from  one  to  three  hundred  thousand, 
and  emancipation  was  often  a  public  necessity.3  The  T'ang 
Emperors  freed  all  government  slaves,  and  we  thenceforth 
hear  only  of  persons  condemned  to  banishment,  —  as  the 
Man-chus  send  criminals  to  government  forges  and  salt- 
works on  the  Amoor,  their  children,  however,  being  given 
to  officers  as  personal  slaves. 

In  the  second  century,  B.C.,  after  the  terrible  desola- 
tions of  the  civil  wars,  the  founder  of  the  Han  permitted 
parents  to  sell  their  children.  This  seems  to  have  been 


1  See  Plath,  Bay.  Akad.  X.  688. 

*  See  Biot's  account,  from  Maiouanlin,  Journ.  Asiat.  1837. 

8  Martin,  I.  218. 


3O2  STRUCTURES. 

the  first  definite  step  to  private  ownership  in  persons.1 
There  were  three  classes  of  bondsmen  :  (i)  prisoners  of 
war ;  (2)  persons  selling  themselves,  or  sold ;  (3)  children 
of  slaves.  A  long  series  of  laws  have  prohibited  child- 
selling  as  well  as  trading  in  the  bodies  of  persons  born 
free;2  and  man-stealers  are  severely  punished.  Yet  the 
former  practice  has  been  too  deeply  rooted  in  social  dis- 
tresses to  be  extirpated  by  laws. 

But  emancipation  was  never  prohibited.  Kwang-woo 
(first  century,  A.C.)  deserves  special  honor.  He  enacted 
that  every  female  sold  should  become  the  purchaser's  legal 
wife  ;  released  officers  who  had  been  reduced  by  poverty 
to  selling  themselves  ;  amnestied  public  slaves  ;  forbade 
killing  or  branding,  and  gave  freedom  to  all  branded  per- 
sons. Edicts  of  emancipation  have  often  been  issued  in 
times  of  distress,  to  increase  the  number  of  tax-payers.  It 
is  observable  that  the  act  is  always  immediate  and  com- 
plete. No  gradualism  complicates  the  evil.  The  great 
severity  of  certain  penal  laws  in  their  bearing  on  slaves 
appears  to  be  an  attempt  to  give  full  validity  to  patriarchal 
absolutism,  which  could  not  be  fully  Carried  out  upon  free 
men. 

But,  however  severe  the  laws,  the  actual  status  of  slaves 
Not  of  the  m  China  in  no  sense  answers  to  that  total  absence 
western  of  rights  by  which  the  term,  in  our  usage,  is  de- 
fined ;  and  still  less  admits  the  cruelties  of  the  old 
Spartan  or  Roman  slave  laws.  "The  Anglo-American," 
wrote  Biot,  in  1837,  "  resembling  the  Chinese  in  his  love  of 
gain  and  his  practical  spirit,  is  inferior  to  him  in  humanity 
as  judged  by  the  severity  of  his  black  laws,  and  the  bar- 
barities he  inflicts  on  his  slave.  In  America,  it  must  be 
remembered,  the  master  is  white  and  the  slave  black.  In 
China  they  belong  to  the  same  race,  and  are  intellectually 
equal.  In  China  the  master  knows  that  poverty  may  re- 

1  Plath  and  Biot.  *  See  Wuttke,  II.  153. 


GOVERNMENT.  303 

duce  him  to  the  condition  of  his  slave,  as  well  as  imperial 
anger  or  physical  calamity.  So  he  inclines  to  mercy  and 
fellow-feeling  towards  him."  l  Other  authorities  are  agreed 
that  the  treatment  of  Chinese  so-called  "  slaves  "  is  ex- 
tremely mild.2  We  are  told  that  they  are  wont  to  eat  with 
their  masters.  If  they  are  ill-treated,  the  magistrate  must 
interfere.  The  romances  represent  them  as  confidants  of 
their  masters.  Nor  does  Chinese  history  record  any  revolt 
of  slaves.  They  often  engage  in  trade  and  redeem  them- 
selves from  bondage.  The  marriage  of  a  female  slave  makes 
her  free ;  while  unmarried,  she  is  treated  like  a  hired  ser- 
vant ;  nor  does  slavery  descend  to  female  children  beyond 
the  first  generation.  The  number  of  male  slaves  is  small ; 
and  their  sons  often  reach  official  position  and  wealth.3 
Yet  it  is  in  the  male  line  only  that  the  condition  becomes 
strictly  hereditary.  There  are  recognitions  of  natural  free- 
dom in  such  facts  as  (i)  the  punishment  of  the  master  and 
his  whole  family  in  case  of  his  murdering  a  slave  and  their 
concealment  of  the  deed,  as  contrasted  with  the  Roman 
custom,  when  a  master  was  murdered,  of  putting  all  his 
slaves  to  death ;  and  (2)  the  prohibition  of  a  husband's 
selling  his  wife,  even  to  be  the  full  wife  of  another  man, 
without  her  own  free  written  consent.4 

It  is  a  fair  inference  from  facts  like  these  that  the 
so-called  slave  class  in  China,  recruited  mostly  from  the 
necessities  of  poverty,  is  continually  being  resolved  back 
into  the  free  community,  through  that  democratic  instinct 
which  overrides  the  whole  system  of  formal  grades  and  dis- 
tinctions. 

The  word  liberty  is  said  to  be  "unknown  to  the  Chinese 
language." 5     This  is   of  course  applicable  only  to  Chinese 
the  definition  of  liberty  as  pure  and  simple  political  liberty> 

1  Journal  A siatique.  -  Wuttke,  II.  153.  8  Doolittle,  II.  an. 

«  Doolittle,  II.  209.  •  Williams,  I.  321. 


304  STRUCTURES. 

self-government.  For  inward  freedom,  for  a  higher  law 
of  conscience  and  reason  as  the  ground  of  personal  cul- 
ture, for  the  spontaneity  of  virtue,  the  classics  have  not 
only  many  terms,  but  a  constant  zeal.  The  whole  purpose 
of  the  Ta-hio  is  to  teach  the  origin  of  all  power  in  the  dis- 
ciplines of  personal  character. 

"  The  point  of  rest  is  in  the  highest  excellence."  l  "  From  the  Em- 
peror down,  the  root  of  every  thing  is  in  the  cultivation  of  the  person."  2 

"  Not  to  do  what  one's  own  sense  of  right  tells  him  not  to  do,  nor 
to  desire  what  it  forbids  him  to  desire,  is  the  sum  of  right  action.1'3 
"  He  whose  goodness  is  part  of  himself  is  a  real  man."  4  "  Though 
poor,  he  does  not  let  go  his  virtue,  nor,  though  prosperous,  leave  his 
own  path."  5  "A  counsellor  to  the  great  should  disregard  their  pomp. 
Why  should  I  stand  in  awe  of  them  ?  " 6  "  Men  have  true  honor 
within;  but  they  do  not  think  of  it.  The  honor  men  confer  is  not 
honor.  Whom  Cheou  ennobles,  he  can  make  mean  again.1' 7 

This  is  the  Platonic  education,  teaching  "  how  rightly  to 
rule,  and  rightly  to  obey."  8 

"  If  a  minister  cannot  correct  himself,  how  can  he  correct  others."  9 
"  A  true  man  will  sacrifice  his  life  to  save  his  principles."10  "  He  is 
in  the  right  way  who  naturally  and  easily  does  right :  choosing  and 
firmly  holding  what  is  good."11 

An  instance  will  illustrate  the  scope  of  this  possibility. 
A  great  ^  nas  been  said  of  Ye-liu,  minister  of  the  family  of 
minister  of  Tchingis  Khan,  and  a  Tartar  with  Chinese  culture, 
that  he  was  a  "  mediator  between  an  oppressed  race 
and  their  oppressor,  his  whole  life  being  spent  in  pleading 
with  triumphant  barbarism  for  the  cause  of  law,  order,  and 
humanity."  He  saved  whole  provinces  of  China  from  being 
depopulated  to  make  pastures  for  the  Tartar  horse,  and 
protected  the  cities  from  being  sacked  with  all  their  arts 
and  industries  ;  restrained  the  custom  of  filling  the  harem 
of  the  Khans  with  the  flower  of  Chinese  families  ;  obtained 
for  the  conquered  nation  the  right  of  holding  office  ;  pro- 

i  Tahio,  c.  ii.  *  Ibid.,  c.  vii.  8  Menc.  VII.  i.  17. 

*  Ibid.,  ii.  25.  8  Ibid.,  i.  9.  •  Ibid.,  ii.  34- 

7  Ibid.,  VI.  i.  17.  8  Laws,  B.  I.  9  Lunyu,  XIII.  13. 

»  Ibid.,  XV.  8.  »  Chung-yunz,  XX. 


GOVERNMENT.  305 

tected  many  of  their  old  institutions  ;  opened  educational 
and  civil  rights  even  to  slaves  ;  repressed  corruption  and 
exaction  ;  rebuked  an  Emperor's  taste  for  strong  drink  ; 
and  availed  himself  of  an  imperial  sickness  to  procure  a 
general  amnesty.  Charged  with  having  enriched  himself, 
at  his  death  he  was  found  possessed  only  of  a  few  pictures 
and  books.  In  brief,  "  he  prepared  afar  off  the  revolution 
that  sent  the  Mongols  back  to  their  deserts,  and  gave  China 
a  government  founded  on  national  manners  and  traditions." 1 
In  the  first  century,  B.C.,  a  governor  in  North-eastern  China 
literally  taught  people  to  sell  their  swords  and  buy  oxen, 
and  brought  banditti  by  amnesties  to  honest  labor  at  the 
plough  :  whence  the  saying  that  in  his  province  "  men  wore 
oxen  at  their  waists  and  heifers  in  their  belts."  2 

Liberty,  in  the  now  too  popular  acceptation  of  the  word, 

—  as  the  unconditioned  right  to  do  as  one  pleases,  Not  "the 

—  is  no  part  of  Chinese  mental  experience.     All  rjsg^°d° 
freedom  is  associated  with  loyalty,  either  to  the  wuis." 
ruler,  the  traditional  institutions  and  ceremonial  grades, 
or,  when    these   lose   their    hold,    to    the   inherent   sense 
of  necessity  for  being  governed,  which  characterizes  the 
race.     This  necessity,  in  the  highest  minds  as  elsewhere, 
takes  the  form  of  reverence  for  the  moral  and  spiritual 
ideal,  as  is  manifest  in  the  whole  tone  of   the   classical 
writings  ;  while  in  ordinary  experience  it  merges  in  typical 
rights  of  the  people  as  such.     The  validity  of  an  ultimate 
appeal  to  the  sense  of  the  people  subsists  in  spite  of  the 
absence  of  those  methods  of  effectuating  the  popular  will 
with  which  Western  races  are  familiar.     Though  China  is 
the  inventor  of  paper  and   printing,  nothing  has  existed, 
until  the  present  time,  more  nearly  approaching  a  popular 
press  than  the  court  bulletin  of  such  events,  petitions,  edicts, 
honors,  services,  ordinances,  as  are  thought  fit  for  general 

1  See  Re"musat,  Now.  Mel.  II.  pp.  64-88. 
1  Mayers? s  Manual,  p.  90. 


3O6  STRUCTURES. 

perusal.  Nevertheless,  the  popular  sentiment  gets  expres- 
The  voice  s'on  m  satires>  stories,  placards,  remonstrances,  dis- 
ofthe  cussions,  and  in  the  secret  societies  whose  germs 
people.  are  -n  t^e  older  records  of  the  nation.1  Legis- 
lative institutions  in  our  sense  are  wanting  ;  but  official 
conduct  is  ventilated  in  the  town  councils,  and  an  unpopu- 
lar mandarin  is  frequently  driven  from  his  place.  The 
responsibility  for  popular  commotions  being  by  law  laid 
upon  these  government  officers,  their  disposition  is  to 
avoid  giving  cause  of  offence  to  the  community.  But,  after 
all,  we  must  observe  how  entirely  the  interest  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  sacrificed  to  the  ideal  of  public  rights  in  the  fact 
that  those  last,  self-destructive  resorts  for  the  overthrow  of 
unjust  officials,  suicide  and  oath-bound  conspiracy,  are  ex- 
ceedingly prevalent.2 

The  imperial  theory  would  hardly  seem  to  recognize 
Local  lib-  local  self-government.  Yet  the  communal  organi- 
vaiage  zation  in  China,  and  even  Japan,3  as  in  India,  main- 
system,  tains  the  idea  of  a  popular  commonwealth  in  many 
important  ways  at  the  base  of  the  social  structure ;  and 
in  the  former  States,  far  more  than  in  the  latter  country, 
yields  practical  instruction  in  the  school  of  liberty.  In 
every  part  of  China  towns  and  villages  abound,  where  the 
officials  of  government  are  scarcely  ever  seen,  and  affairs 
are  administered  by  local  authorities,  selected  on  the  basis 
of  the  national  respect  for  culture,  and  forming  bodies  which 
direct  affairs  by  open  discussion,  sometimes  amounting  to 
decision  of  peace  or  war  between  neighboring  clans.4  These 
municipal  institutions,  even  in  the  poorer  communes,  rest 
on  a  kind  of  patriarch o-universal  suffrage,  to  which  all  heads 

1  See  especially  Hue's  Chinese  Empire,  II.  83-86;  St.  Denys,  Patsies  de  f  Epoque  des 
Thang  (Paris,  1872),  p.  xxviii. 

2  See  Mcfarlane,  TJte  Chinese  Revolution;  Meadows,  p.  115. 

8  Smith's  Ten  Weeks  in  Japan.  "  The  Japanese  peasant  is  jealous  of  his  rights  and  asserts 
them."  See  also  Seances  des  Orientalistes,  1873,  I.  199. 

4  Meadows,  p.  47 ;  La  Chine  Ouverte,  p.  191  ;  Chinese  ReJ>.,  January,  1836. 


GOVERNMENT.  307 

of  families  are  entitled,  or  on  choice  of  elders  by  lot1  Or- 
ganizations of  the  people,  for  the  detection  and  punishment 
of  robbers  and  other  social  offenders,  are  very  common.2 
The  elders  of  town  councils,  even  where  government  has 
its  ti-paos,  or  mayors,  possess  very  considerable  powers  ; 
communicating  with  the  prefect  through  these  latter  offices, 
administering  justice  and  directing  the  police,  regulating 
ceremonies,  settling  disputes,  and  estimating  taxes.  They 
remain  in  office  during  the  good  will  of  the  people.  In 
dangerous  moments,  these  councils  unite  for  consultation, 
from  fifty  to  a  hundred  combining  for  discussion  in  some 
central  hall  ;  and  their  decisions  are  of  great  weight  with 
the  central  government.  Their  power  over  State  officials 
was  seen  in  the  resistance  of  the  Canton  city  council  to  the 
opening  of  that  port  to  the  British  in  1857.  "There  are 
customs,  privileges,  and  laws  in  every  province  which  the 
government  dare  not  abolish,  and  which  destroy  that  civil 
and  administrative  unity  which  Europeans  have  been  pleased 
to  attribute  to  this  colossal  Empire."3  The  habit  of  free 
discussion  is  further  developed  in  the  direction  of  an  in- 
terest of  prime  value  in  China  by  the  trade  associations, 
which  exercise  immense  influence,  and  in  Canton  alone 
make  use  of  more  than  a  hundred  halls.  In  the  East  or  the 
West,  no  institutions  can  prevent  the  tendencies  of  industry 
to  diffuse  freedom. 

The  dialectics  and  narrations  of  Mencius  often  reveal  a 
socialistic  element,  as  apt  to  crop  out  in  this  soil  of  Chinese 
free  discussion.4  Re"musat  gives  an  interesting  account  of 
an  effort  of  this  kind  on  a  national  scale,  led  by  Wang-ngan- 
che,  a  reformer  of  the  eleventh  century,  who  carried  even 
the  ruling  prince  along  with  him  for  a  time,  in  schemes  for 
introducing  equality  of  property,  abolishing  monopolies  by 
making  the  State  the  only  creditor,  in  the  name  of  the 

1  Bazin,  Keeker ches  sur  les  Instil,  de  la.  Chine,  1854;  Plath,  Landwirthsch.  d.  Chine- 
sen  (1874),  p.  40. 

»  Hue,  II.  82-84.  >  Ibid.,  II.  49-  *  Menc.  III.  14;  Vl.ii.  10. 


3O8  STRUCTURES. 

working  classes,  and  substituting  for  superstitious  rites  to 
remove  disease  and  famine,  earthquakes  and  droughts, 
those  sanitary  and  other  social  duties  that  belong  to  a  re- 
sponsible government.1  That  the  crude  mixture  of  sense 
and  folly  in  this  bold  reform  should  soon  break  it  down  was 
but  natural ;  yet  it  is  none  the  less  impressive  as  a  sign  of 
opportunity  to  conceive  and  propagate  principles  of  social 
justice. 

Not  less  effective  sources  of  popular  activity  and  com- 
The  clans  kination  are  the  clans,  of  which  there  are  said  to  be 
nearly  five  hundred  ;  originating  probably  in  the 
old  tribal  divisions  of  feudal  times,  and  in  the  large  diver- 
sity of  ethnic  elements  out  of  which  the  nation  is  composed.2 
But  the  value  of  the  clans,  as  schools  of  social  organization, 
is  fully  offset  by  their  disintegrative  effects  on  the  State 
as  a  whole.  So  violent  are  their  contentions  that  they 
frequently  interrupt  trade  and  production,  and  defeat  all 
attempts  to  execute  the  laws.  As  the  clan  is  but  a  develop- 
ment of  the  patriarchal  family,  retaining  in  large  degree  the 
forms  of  that  primitive  system,  it  is  natural  to  find  in  China, 
where  those  forms  have  undergone  less  change  than  in 
Aryan  States,  whole  neighborhoods  bound  by  ties  of  a 
common  ancestry,  and  whole  tribes  united  by  recognition 
of  common  chiefs  and  elders.  The  law  which  forbids  in- 
termarriage among  persons  of  the  same  surname  must  tend 
to  dissolve  these  family  concretions. 

That   the   elements   of    political    self-government,    now 
mentioned,  should  not  have  been  developed  into 

Supposed  .  e  f  ...  .,, 

absence  of  some  torm  or  parliamentary  institutions,  will  seem 
progress.  inexpiicable,  till  we  reflect  on  the  peculiar  instinct 
of  this  people  to  bury  itself  in  organization,  without  secur- 
ing freedom  to  the  individual  atoms,  on  whose  self-asser- 

1  Nottv.  Mel.  Asiat.  II.,  "  Life  of  Ssemakwang." 

2  These  elements  have  not  been  clearly  discerned,  though  several  careful  studies  have  been 
made  on  the  Hakkas  and  some  Miautse  tribes. 


GOVERNMENT.  309 

tion  such  progress  depends.  The  want  of  progress  in 
Chinese  institutions  has  probably  been  exaggerated.  The 
native  writers,  indeed,  regard  the  later  centralization  as 
but  return  to  a  primitive  perfect  monarchy.  But  it  may 
well  be  believed  to  represent  the  gradual  working  out  of 
the  demand  for  national  unity  inherent  in  Chinese  nature. 
It  took  a  decisive  form  in  the  great  change  effected  in  the 
third  century  B.C.  from  feudal  anarchy  to  democratico- 
monarchical  institutions.  Not  only  were  the  hereditary 
chiefs  of  States  absorbed,  and  their  exhausting  wars 
quelled,  but  the  old  aristocracy  and  its  land  tenures  were 
levelled,  the  paths  of  distinction  opened  to  the  humblest 
classes,  and  a  general  application  of  the  educational  tests 
of  fitness  for  public  functions  was  made  possible.  These 
were  the  ultimate  outcome  of  a  revolution  which  seemed  at 
first  to  be  the  subjugation  of  all  existing  local  liberties 
under  the  sway  of  a  single  despot.  It  has  certainly  been 
a  revolution  in  the  interest  of  social  order  and  growth ; 
and  the  result  has  been  wrought  out  through  long  ferment 
of  the  elements}  and  at  vast  sacrifice  of  human  life.  It  has 
been  a  triumph  over  barriers  of  tribal  tradition  and  the 
rivalries  of  States  and  clans,  that  deserves  to  rank  among 
the  great  facts  of  progress,  and  proves  these  not  to  be 
wanting  in  the  patriarchal  Empire  of  Repose. 

The  immutability  of  China  is  a  fiction ;  though  the  vast 
scale  and  patient  uniform  pressure  of  the  forces  „  Chinese 
at  work  may  almost  remind  us,  in  their  power  to  immobility" 
disguise  movement,  of  the  molecular  changes  of 
geology.  There  must  be  motive  force  in  a  nation  which 
has  passed  through  twenty  changes  of  dynasty  in  as  many 
centuries.  Comparing  the  earliest  and  latest  epochs  of  its 
history,  we  note  the  striking  difference  in  land  tenure, 
which  at  first  was  wholly  vested  in  the  State,  but,  since 
the  great  revolution  just  referred  to,  has  been  steadily  trans- 
formed into  private  ownership.  Freedom  of  locomotion, 


3IO  STRUCTURES. 

however  hampered  by  local  causes,  has  advanced  to  that 
extent,  that  for  the  last  few  centuries  no  equal  area  on  the 
civilized  globe  can  be  traversed  by  its  own  inhabitants, 
with  so  little  interference  from  officials,  as  the  two  thou- 
sand miles  square  of  Chinese  territory.  Immense  changes 
in  diet,  dress,  products,  culture,  organization,  administra- 
tion, have  slowly  penetrated  it.1  How  vast,  original,  com- 
plex, and  refined  a  civilization  has  been  evolved  from  the 
rude  tribes  that  descended  thousands  of  years  ago  through 
the  wildernesses  of  the  Hoangho,  and  in  a  space  of  time 
which  the  prodigious  ethnic  scale  on  which  it  proceeds 
seems  to  reduce  to  a  day ! 

The  Chinese  themselves,  contrary  to  the  general  impres- 
Traditions  sion,  distinctly  recognize  progress.  They  begin 
of  progress.  wjt^  a  picture  of  their  forefathers,  as  a  race  of 
men  scarcely  above  the  condition  of  brutes,  without 
fire  or  dwelling,  clad  in  skins,  and  eating  roots  and 
insects,  but  gradually  lifted  by  wise  and  practical  persons 
to  that  stage  of  development  in  which  they  could  receive 
the  normal  institutions  depicted  in  the  Shu-king.2  They 
have  characteristically  described  these  teachers  of  hut- 
building,  cooking,  and  dressing,  as  well  as  of  writing, 
music,  medicine,  agriculture,  and  historical  construction, 
as  princes  ruling  nations  and  forming  long  dynasties. 
Their  series  of  inventions  is  as  unscientifically  constructed 
as  the  order  of  creation  in  the  Hebrew  Genesis ;  yet  the 
long  period  conceded  in  the  mythology  to  this  prehistoric 
development  is  a  clear  recognition  of  progress  as  a  princi- 
ple in  human  nature,  beside  which  the  three  or  four  thou- 
sand years  of  a  supposed  degeneracy  which  constitute 
their  real  history  seems  but  a  mere  streak  on  the  surface 
of  an  evolutionary  deep  of  time. 

1  See  Hellwald,  Culturgeschickte  (Augsburg,  1874),  pp.  79,  80. 

2  Biot,  Journ.  Asiat.  1846  ;  also,  the  '•  Bamboo  Books"  of  the  Shu-king^  and  De  Mail- 
la's  Hist.  Gen.  de  la  Chine,  I.  i. 


GOVERNMENT.  311 

Curiously  combined  with  this  positivist  instinct  is  their 
reference  of  the  ideal  of  government  to  a  remote  Past  poiit_ 
past,  beyond  recorded  history.  How  far  we  accept  y^^*15' 
this  firm  postulate  of  Chinese  belief  depends  very  shun, 
much  on  the  degree  of  influence  we  ascribe  to  the 
national  habit  of  treating  the  ideal  as  existing  only  in  an 
immediate  concrete,  an  instant  realization.  While  the  tra- 
ditions and  records  from  which  Confucius  compiled  the 
description  of  the  old  monarchy,  as  contained  in  the  Shu- 
king,  could  not  possibly  have  been  formed  in  his  day, 
since  they  required  a  long  period  for  their  elaboration,  — 
they  must  not,  on  the  other  hand,  be  carried  back  so  far  as 
to  defeat  this  requirement  on  the  other  side.  A  central- 
ized government,  ruling  several  principalities  and  parcel- 
ling out  large  domains  by  investiture,  was  never,  even  in 
China,  brought  to  birth  in  a  day. 

There  is  no  question  in  Comparative  Politics  more  inter- 
esting, as  there  is  none  more  recondite,  than  the  siowevo- 
process  by  which  the  Family  Idea  unfolded  into  a  Monof 
vast  imperialism  like  that  of  China,  without  losing  archai 
its  essential  character.     This  evolution  must  cover  state> 
many  stages  of  the  growth  of  nations  in  general  ;  but  in 
China  we   may  observe   its    normal  course,    because  the 
supremacy  of  the  idea  has  not  been  interfered  with  from 
without  nor  from  within.     That  the  patriarchalism  of  the 
Family  has  passed  on  into  the  Village  Community  or  clan, 
and  the  authority  of  the  Father  into  that  of  the  Chief  ; 
and  that  ties  of  blood  have  transfused  their  virtue  into  rela- 
tions of  landed,  interest,  and  other  great  political  and  civil 
components, —  are  facts  which  have  proved  to  be  of  widest 
application  in   the  study  of  national  origins  and  institu- 
tions.    The  subject  has  lately  attracted  much  close  inves- 
tigation, in  which  Sir  Henry  Maine  and  Mr.  Edward   L. 
Freeman  have,  been  especially  prominent.     The  latter  has 
called  attention  to  the  substantial  identity  of  the  "  yevos  " 


312  STRUCTURES. 

of  Athens,  the  "gens"  of  Rome,  the  "mark"  of  the  Teu- 
tonic nations,  the  "  Village  Community  "  of  the  East,  and 
the  Irish  "clan"  as  a  transition  from  the  Family  to  the 
Tribal  Union,  which  in  its  turn  is  the  basis  of  the  City  or 
the  State.1  The  former  has  devoted  a  large  section  of  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  works  of  modern  times  to  tracing 
the  effect  of  that  "  mental  sterility  "  which  confines  nations 
in  their  early  stages  to  the  Family  Idea,  in  expanding  that 
idea,  by  a  series  of  constructive  fictions,  "  into  the  House, 
the  Tribe,  and  lastly  the  State."  Thus  in  races  as  distinct 
from  each  other  as  the  Hindus,  Romans,  and  Irish,  the 
actual  name  of  Family,  with  many  of  the  associations 
thereto  belonging,  has  been  transferred  to  the  results  of 
personal  adoption  and  assumption  of  new  ancestral  cults, 
to  septs,  guilds,  religious  bodies,  as  well  as  to  the  rela- 
tions of  foster-parent  and  spiritual  instructor.2  The  grow- 
ing associations  of  natural  relatives  open  their  gates  of 
privilege  and  safety  to  artificial  membership  ;  and  the 
State  is  formed  before  the  nucleating  conception  of  a 
Family  Bond  is  lost.  An  element  of  equality  in  this  con- 
ception is  developed  by  the  ownership  of  land  into  the 
village  community ;  and  the  patriarch  becomes  transmuted 
into  the  Chief  or  King  by  the  natural  effort  to  discover  in 
whom  the  purest  ancestral  blood  has  descended,  —  a  deci- 
sion made  by  the  tests  of  fitness,  so  that  election  gradually 
supersedes  birth.  These  researches  of  Maine  do  not  cover 
the  history  of  China,  which  will  hereafter  afford  a  vast 
field  for  such  inquiries.  Enough  is  already  known  to  ena- 
ble us  to  bring  this  marvellous  civilization,  so  long  sup- 
posed absolutely  unlike  any  other,  into  the  line  of  these  and 
similar  universal  laws.  The  patriarchal  village  community 
still  constitutes  the  basis  of  Chinese  society.  The  clan 
distinctions  testify  to  the  prodigious  force  of  the  family 

1  Comparative  Politics,  Am.  ed.  1874,  pp.  102,  103. 
*  Maine's  Early  History  of  Institutions. 


GOVERNMENT.  313 

bond  on  which  they  rest.  The  earliest  land  systems  of 
Chinese  tradition,  whose  traces  still  remain,  not  in  books 
only,  but  in  the  divisions  of  the  soil,  are  evident  efforts  to 
adhere  as  closely  as  possible  to  the  primitive  equality  of 
families.  The  princes  of  the  petty  States  were  separate 
nuclei  of  patriarchalism  not  yet  absorbed  into  a  whole. 
The  tradition  that  the  imperial  office  was  originally  elec- 
tive, the  strange  combination  of  its  paternal  authority  with 
local  liberties  and  instinctive  equalities,  and  its  responsi- 
bility to  the  test  of  fitness,  are  all  readily  explained  as 
results  of  patriarchalism  in  its  natural  evolution.  And 
this  mighty  witness  to  the  self-perpetuating  and  productive 
force  of  the  Family  Bond,  at  the  farthest  pole  of  civiliza- 
tion from  our  own,  adds  weight  to  the  urgency  of  its 
demand  on  us  also  for  that  special  guardianship  which 
properly  belongs  to  the  first  principle  of  social  safety  and 
growth. 

We  know  not  at  what  remote  epoch  the  "  black-haired  " 
tribes   first   appeared  on  the  soil  of   China ;  'but  Secu]ar 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  long  stages,  similar  to  stages  of 
those  of  other  nomadic  or  patriarchal  tribes,  pre-  c^iTese" 
ceded  their  political  consolidation.     The  traces  of  History, 
these  have  not  been  wholly   covered   by   later  construc- 
tions.    How  very  gradual  must  have  been  the  extension 
of  a  centralizing   force    through   wild   regions   and   their 
barbarous  hordes,  is   shown   by  the   free  spirit   of   these 
native  elements  with  which  it  had  to  deal.     Covenants  are 
recorded  between  their  princes  (or  sheikhs)  and  the  people, 
in  which  the  democratic   instinct,  so  conspicuous   in  later 
times,  shows  a  rude  strength.     "  If  you  will  not  fall  away 
from  us,  we  will  not  force  you  to  sales,  nor  beg  nor  extort 
from  you."     "  We  have  believed  and  kept  our  covenant,  to 
this  day.     If  you  exact  aught  from  our  traders  you  will 
teach  us  to  break  our  faith." 

The  consolidation  of  tribes  of  this  temper  under  one 


314  STRUCTURES. 

monarchy  must  have  been  slow.  That  their  princes  were 
ever  the  fiefless  vassals  of  a  great  central  power,  such  as 
the  Shu-king  describes,  does  not  seem  very  credible.  The 
old  Chinese,  whether  an  immigrant  tribe  or  not,  were  at  all 
events  a  settled  community,  engaged  in  culture  of  silk  and 
grain,  and  expanding  by  the  power  of  industry  rather  than 
by  that  of  conquest.  Yu  redeems  the  wilderness  and 
divides  the  cleared  land  for  purposes  of  culture.  The 
heroes  of  this  march  on  Nature  are  busy  hewers  of  wood 
and  drawers  of  water.  Wars  with  the  aboriginal  tribes  are 
not  wholly  wanting ; l  but  Yu  conquers  the  barbarous 
Meaou  by  withdrawing  his  army,  and  setting  a  good  moral 
example.  A  chief  of  Lu,  dissuading  from  war,  said,  "  Do 
right :  submission  will  follow.  When  the  enemy  is  cold, 
clothe  him  ;  if  hungry,  feed  him  ;  be  his  true  ruler  in 
weariness  and  want,  and  he  will  of  himself  return  to  you."  2 
Confucius,  Mencius,  and  Laotseu  echo  the  strain  of  peace, 
and  have  no  toleration  for  great  conquerors,  or  expansion 
by  force  of  arms. 

Compared  with  conquest,  the  agricultural  ardor  of  the 
Traditions  Chinese  would  be  a  slow  process  of  territorial  ex- 
Of  territorial  pansion,  and  hardly  consistent  with  the  traditions 
growth.  ^j.  Shun  distributed  fiefs  to  a  great  number  of 
vassals;3  that  "ten  thousand  kingdoms  held  Yu's  stones 
and  silks  in  hand  ; " 4  that  eight  hundred  princes  united 
under  Woo-wang,  founder  of  the  Tcheou  dynasty  in  the 
twelfth  century,  B.C.  ;  and  that  seventeen  hundred  and 
seventy-three  feudal  fiefs  belonged  to  the  early  rulers  of 
this  line,5  who  are  said  to  have  absorbed  and  given  away 
kingdoms  by  the  dozen  to  strengthen  themselves  on  the 
throne.6  The  revolutions  by  which  the  earliest  dynasties 


1  Sku-king,  Pt.  II.  B.  n. ;  Pt.  III.  B.  II. 

2  Plath,  from  Tscho-chi  (Bay.  Ak.  X.  465). 

8  Bamboo  Books  of  Shu-king.  *  Sseki. 

6  Matouanlin.  6  Plath,  ut  supra. 


GOVERNMENT.  315 

(Hia  and  Shang)  were  overthrown,  and  the  long-lived 
eventful  Tcheou  established,  their  warlike  and  generous 
heroes,  Tang  and  Woo,  and  the  great  and  good  Duke  of 
Tcheou,  —  the  Joshuas  and  the  Moses  of  Chinese  tradition, 
as  Fo-hi  was  the  Abraham,  —  even  if  historical,  must  have 
filled  a  much  smaller  stage  of  action  than  the  old  books 
imply.  Confined  to  the  region  of  the  Wei  and  Ho,1  it 
embraced  not  more  than  a  sixth  part  of  the  eighteen  prov- 
inces now  included  in  China  Proper.  The  great  empire  of 
Yao  and  Shun,  as  a  primeval  rock  which  fell  apart  into  the 
disorganized  feudalism  of  the  later  Tcheou,  and  was  re- 
constructed as  far  as  possible  after  the  monarchical  con- 
quests of  the  T'sin  in  the  third  century  B.C.,  can  hardly  be 
accepted  as  historically  proven.  More  probable  is  the 
gradual  absorption  of  the  numerous  tribes  into  the  indus- 
trial civilization  of  the  "  black-haired  "  races,  to  which,  as 
in  Egypt,  Babylon,  Phenicia,  and  elsewhere,  the  centraliza- 
tion of  monarchy,  as  an  industrial  convenience,  was  but  a 
natural  incident. 

Even  Mencius  says,  "  It  would  be  better  to  be  without 
the  Book  of  History  (Shu-king)  than  to  give  entire  credit 
to  it."2  If  we  are  right,  the  fact  is  valuable  as  confirming 
the  conclusions  of  modern  criticism  for  a  largely  mytho- 
logical origin  of  the  Old  Testament  records,  by  the  case  of 
a  people  far  more  careful  in  preserving  historical  data  than 
the  Hebrews  ;  thus  affording  added  evidence  that  these 
conclusions  represent  a  universal  law. 

The  Shu-king  picture,  however,  though  needing  to  be 
much  reduced  in  scale,  and  sifted  of  elements  grow- 

3  Real  value 

ing  out  of  later  governmental  ideals,  may  neverthe-  Of  the 
less  possess  great  historical  value,  -as  indicating  the 
germs  of  imperial  relations,  afterwards  more  fully 

1  Plath  ;  also  Legge's  Prolegomena  to  the  Shiking.      The  odes  indicate  this  very  clearly. 
Ssemathsian  speaks  of  inroads  by  barbarous  tribes  into  Shantung,  one  of  the  oldest  States,  as 
late  as  noo  B.C. 

2  Menc.,  VII.  n.  3. 


STRUCTURES. 

unfolded,  and  may  even  deal  with  historical  personages.  It 
is  too  prosaically  realistic  and  detailed  to  be  summarily 
ascribed  to  the  mytho-poetic  faculty.  Its  minuteness  of 
organization  has  an  accordance  with  Chinese  tendencies ; 
and  the  steady  insistence  on  such  early  centralization, 
through  all  ages  of  Chinese  experience,  points  to  some 
antecedent  germ  which  it  is  the  function  of  history  to 
trace. 

The  early  books  of  the  Shu-king 1  may  be  called  a  Chi- 
Eariiest  nese  Declaration  of  Faith  in  the  power  of  ideal 
shubooks.  government  to  assume  immediate  concrete  being, 
and  possess  the  world.  Their  record  of  Yao  and  Shun,  and 
of  Yu  as  founder  of  the  first  (Hia)  dynasty  (2300-2200 
B.C.),  is,  in  our  opinion,  an  effort  to  erect  on  the  historical 
data  afforded  by  the  more  or  less  primitive  relations  of 
a  number  of  semi-civilized  tribes  an  elaborate  imperial 
organization  ;  and  in  such  full  harmony  with  the  ideal  of 
Chinese  statesmen,  that  we  actually  find  in  it  the  whole 
substance  of  their  perfected  state.  Observe  its  thoroughly 
practical  character. 

All  power  proceeds  from  the  Emperor,  —  who,  however, 
The  ideal  consults  his  ministers  in  appointing  his  successor, 
monarchy.  an(j  holds  himself  responsible  for  the  condition  of 
his  people.  Yao  selects  Shun  as  morally  fittest  to  rule 
and  by  the  general  voice.  Shun  seeks  to  "  see  with  the 
eyes  and  hear  with  the  ears  of  all."  He  appoints  twelve 
"  pastors "  of  provinces  (Mou),  and  bids  them  "  sustain 
the  people  with  food,  treat  strangers  kindly,  instruct  the 
neighbor,  appreciate  the  good,  discountenance  the  evil, 
and  so  bring  the  barbarians  into  subjection."  He  allows 
banishment  and  money-fines  in  commutation  of  the  "  five 
great  penalties."  We  have  already  the  whip  in  the  courts 


1  The  passages  adduced  in  illustration  of  the  Shu-king  are  of  course  drawn  from  the 
most  authoritative  translation  of  the  classics  which  we  possess,  the  invaluable  labors  of 
Dr.  Legge. 


GOVERNMENT.  317 

and  the  stick  in  the  schools.  But  he  says  to  himself :  "  Let 
me  be  reverent,  and  let  compassion  rule  in  punishment." 
Inadvertent  offences  are  pardoned,  obstinate  ones  are  pun- 
ished to  extremity. 

His  supervision  over  vassal  princes  is  exercised  (i)  by 
the  Mou  ;  (2)  by  requiring  them  to  come  to  court  every 
four  years,  receiving  chariots,  robes,  and  gems,  according 
to  their  doings  ;  and  (3)  by  tours  of  personal  inspection 
every  fifth  year,  —  giving  audience,  arranging  times  and 
seasons,  weights  and  measures,  ceremonies,  music,  official 
rites  to  Shang-te,  to  the  six  "  holy  rulers,"  the  hills,  streams, 
and  spirit  hosts.  These  tours  were  a  father's  visits  to  his 
children,  —  who  was  also  priest,  judge,  mediator,  chief 
shepherd.  An  old  proverb  of  the  Hia  says :  "  When  the 
Wang  does  not  make  his  appearance,  how  shall  we  have 
rest,  how  find  help  ?  " 

His  administrative  force  embraces,  in  addition  to  Yu,  as 
Prime  Minister,  a  Chief  of  Agriculture,  "  to  sow  grains  for 
the  needy ; "  of  Moral  Instruction,  to  set  forth  with  gentle- 
ness the  lessons  of  duty  ;  of  Crime,  of  Works,  of  Forests, 
of  Ancestral  Rites,  of  Music,  of  Public  Communication  by 
Edict  or  otherwise.  These  nine,  added  to  the  twelve  Mou, 
and  a  chief  of  somewhat  uncertain  functions,  make  the 
"  Twenty-two  "  whom  he  exhorts  to  aid  him  in  the  service 
of  Heaven.  All,  in  true  Chinese  humility,  decline  their 
honors,  but  are  forced  to  accept  office.1 

Like  the  later  censors  these  ministers  are  endowed  with 
many  prerogatives  ;  their  advice  and  reproof,  in  all  the 
earlier  reigns,  are  given  in  very  bold  and  lofty  sentences, 
which  are  often  received  in  humility.  These  counsels  and 
confessions,  and  the  frequent  royal  appeals  to  the  people, 
are  more  than  germs  of  later  democracy.  Even  the  com- 
petitive examinations  are  in  full  course  ;  every  three  years 
comes  an  inquiry  into  the  merits  of  officials,  and  after 

1  Canon  of  Shun;  see  also  Plath,  China  vor  4,000  Jahren,  Bay.  Ak.,  June,  1869. 


3l8  STRUCTURES. 

three  such  the  undeserving  are  degraded  and  the  deserving 
advanced. 

As  Shun  organizes  the  government,  so  Yu  the  land  and 
the  people.  He  surveys  the  territory,  confines  the  floods, 
clears  and  maps  out  the  soil.  His  nine  provinces  are 
minutely  described,  though  not  now  identifiable,1  and  en- 
graved on  Nine  Vases,  preserved  as  the  national  palladium 
for  centuries,  and  believed  to  manifest  coming  changes  in 
the  State.  He  invests  princes  by  bestowing  on  each  a 
piece  of  sod  of  the  color  of  the  soil  of  his  country.2  The 
princes,  on  their  part,  bring  for  tribute  samples  of  the  prod- 
ucts of  their  dominions,  which  are  described  in  minute 
detail.3 

The  land  is  divided  in  a  highly  artificial  manner,  which 
reminds  us  of  a  nest  of  boxes,  and  seems  devised  to  meet 
the  characteristic  national  love  of  mechanical  symmetry 
and  distributive  function.  Five  concentric  squares  consti- 
tute as  many  domains  ;  the  imperial  is  in  the  centre,  sur- 
rounded by  four  others  ;  the  second  is  for  nobles  ;  the  third 
for  education  ;  the  fourth  for  punishment  and  restraint, 
reaching  out  to  the  wild  tribes,  whose  domain  is  the  fifth 
and  last.  Each  sends  its  portion  of  the  public  grain. 

The  mutual  dependence  of  prince  and  people  is  fully 
recognized. 

"  Of  all  who  are  to  be  loved,  is  not  the  Emperor  the  chief  ?  Of  all 
who  are  to  be  feared,  are  not  the  peoples  the  chief?  If  the  mass  have 
no  ruler,  whom  shall  they  honor  ?  If  the  prince  have  no  people,  who 
shall  guard  his  land  ?  "  4 

The  Emperor  is  but  servant  of  Heaven. 

"  Let  him  not  set  example  of  idleness  and  vice  to  rulers,  nor  allow 
officers  to  be  cumberers  of  their  places.  The  work  is  Heaven's  ;  it  is 
men's  to  act  for  Heaven.  All  duties,  distinctions,  ceremonies,  are  from 
Heaven."5  "Laws,  rites,  rewards,  and  punishments  come  from 

1  The  indications  of  the  names  are  that  the  country  was  very  limited. 

*  This  is  a  governmental  application  of  the  theory  of  five  elemental  colors. 

8  Yu-kung  chapter.  *  Shu-king,  Pt.  II.  B.  n.  17.  5  Ibid.,  B.  n. 


GOVERNMENT. 

Heaven  :  when  it  punishes,  neither  great  nor  small  escape 
none  come  between  you  and  men  of  worth.     Do  not  go  against 
to  get  popular  applause  ;  do  not  oppose  the  people  to  follow  your  o 
desires."  2 

His  ministers  are  his  "  legs  and  arms,  ears  and  eyes  ;  " 
to  give  effect  to  his  wishes  to  support  his  people,  whose 
will  represents  Heaven  by  signs  of  favor  or  discontent.  It 
is  theirs  to  correct  him  if  he  goes  astray.3 

On  his  official  robes  figures  of  all  forms,  elements,  and 
creatures  are  embroidered  ;  and  every  good  success  is  cele- 
brated by  joyous  rites  that  mark  the  genial  spirit  of  these 
relations. 

"When  the  nine  services  have  been  performed,  let  the  end  be  cele- 
brated by  songs.  Unite  the  people  with  gentle  words,  and  correct 
them  with  the  majesty  of  law.  Stimulate  them  with  song,  that  your 
success  may  never  suffer  loss."  4 

Yu  announces,  even  so  early,  that 

'*  Virtue  is  to  hold  fast  the  mean;  for  the  mind  of  man  is  restless, 
and  prone  to  error."  6 

And  Kaou-kaou  has  determined  the  exact  number  of  vir- 
tues to  be  nine,  each  a  form  of  mean  between  extremes.6 

"  Punishment  should  not  descend  to  heirs,  but  rewards  should 
reach  to  future  generations.  Rather  than  put  to  death  one  innocent 
person,  run  risk  of  irregularity  and  error.  This  virtue  has  penetrated 
the  minds  of  the  people."  7 

Moral  suasion  and  forgiveness  is  the  sovereign  power 
over  enemies.  Yu  proclaims  his  principle  of  conquest 
thus  :  — 

"  Entire  sincerity  moves  spiritual  beings  ;  how  much  more  this 
prince  of  Meaou  !  "  8 

The  perfect  powers  of  sincerity,  however,  did  not  suffice, 
any  more  than  in  later  days  ;  and  in  the  very  next  reign  the 
Emperor  K'e  has  to  "  execute  reverently  the  punishment  of 

1  Old  Commentary  on  the  same.  *  Ibid.,  B.  11.  8  Ibid.,  Pt.  IV.  B.  vin. 

«  Shu-king,  Pt.  II.  B.  ii.  6  Ibid.  •  Ibid.,  B.  in. 

7  Ibid.,  B.  n.  •  Ibid. 


32O  STRUCTURES. 

Heaven  "  on  the  prince  of  Hoo  in  a  great  battle,  and  threaten 
rebellious  princes  generally  with  condign  destruction.1  In 
less  than  a  century  from  Yu  a  monarch  appeals  to  "  older 
statutes  "  to  justify  the  immediate  execution  of  great  officers 
for  "  stupidly  going  astray  "  in  the  matter  of  observing  and 
reporting  the  appearances  of  the  heavens.2  But  the  oldest 
wars  are  not  aggressive,  nor  for  conquest,  but  to  put  down 
rebellions,  in  the  name  of  a  divine  social  order. 

The  difference  between  this  and  other  golden  ages,  con- 
Concrete-  structed  in  the  past  out  of  later  experiences,  is  that 
ness  of  the  it  assumes  not  an  abstractly  ideal  State,  with  the 

picture.          ..  f  r 

license  or  mythical  iancy,  but  a  positive  govern- 
mental organization  in  full  detail.  The  Chinese  ideal  is  a 
concrete  government.  It  is  a  working  order  in  public  rela- 
tions ;  no  dreamland,  but  operating  machinery.  This  char- 
acteristic of  the  race  is  the  only  explanation  of  the  early 
Shu-king  Books. 

The  elaborate  organization  thus  ascribed  to  the  opening 
Probabiii-  of  the  first  dynasty  implies  a  passivity  in  the  ele- 
purety 'ideal  ments>  as  well  as  an  ingenuity  in  the  founders, 
character,  quite  incredible  at  so  early  a  period  even  in  the 
Chinese.  The  wonder  increases  when  we  look  at  the 
alleged  Institutes  of  the  Tcheou,  several  hundred  years 
later,  where  the  extent  and  fixedness  of  pre-arrangement 
is  such,  —  down  to  dress,  dwellings,  eating,  etiquette,  and 
means  and  methods  of  every  kind,  —  and  the  distribution  of 
functions  so  inconceivably  minute,  as  to  resemble  one  of 
those  intricate  patterns  wrought  out  by  the  cunning  fingers 
of  Chinese  women,  in  many-colored  threads.  Such  recep- 
tivity in  the  people,  such  shaping  power  in  the  rulers,  is 
practically  impossible.  It  is,  more  probably,  the  national 
ideal  ;  a  bloom  from  the  inmost  heart  of  this  people's  faith 
in  the  self-organizing  power  of  virtue  and  the  necessity  of 
being  led  from  above  while  growing  from  beneath.  Yu  and 

i  Shu-kinS,  Pt.  III.  B.  H.  *  Ibid.,  B.  iv. 


GOVERNMENT.  321 

Shun  are  the  myth  of  the  Child-People,  who  must  have 
grown  gradually  to  these  elaborate  formations  of  faith, 
though  even  in  infancy  indicating  them  in  germs  which  we 
can  in  some  measure  discern.  The  advanced  morality  of 
the  Shu-king  is  of  course  very  much  older  than  Confucius, 
with  whom  every  thought  is  more  or  less  traditional.  The 
elaboration  of  it  in  speeches  is  doubtless  largely  due  to  him  ; 
yet  the  materials  must  have  been  given  in  old  facts  and 
names,  and  in  the  far-brought  national  ideal  which  flowered 
in  him  and  in  his  school.  He  himself  declares  that  the 
remains  of  antiquity  are  inadequate,  and  that  his  statements 

about  it  cannot  be  attested.1 

» 

Between  the  putative  age  of  Yu  and  the  next  gr5at  epoch 
of  politico-ideal  construction,  the  accession  of  the  The  Hia 
Tcheou,  intervenes  a  space  of  a  thousand  years  andshans- 
(2200-1200  B.C.),  embracing  the  whole  period  contemporary 
with  Hebrew  tradition  from  the  Abrahamites  to  the  Judges, 
as  also  with  that  of  the  Greek  builders  of  cities  and  the 
Trojan  war.  Sixteen  kings  of  the  Hia  and  twenty-eight  of 
the  Shang,  most  of  them  known  to  us  only  by  name,  are 
followed  by  the  overthrow  of  Chow-sin  by  the  prince  of 
Tcheou,  at  the  head  of  a  confederation  of  chiefs  roused  by 
the  cruelties  of  that  ruler.  Two  dynasties,  each  opening 
with  a  model  prince,  have  ended  in  imperial  degradation 
and  popular  misery,  and  in  that  appeal  to  the  right  of  revo- 
lution which  is  so  familiar  to  the  Chinese  race.  The  ideal 
has  faded  in  the  very  first  century  after  the  death  of  Yu. 
The  "  songs  of  the  seven  sons  of  K'e  "  lament  the  failure 
of  these  institutions  and  the  consequent  ruin  of  their  royal 
family.2  Already  in  Yu's  time,  alcohol  has  begun  its  rav- 
ages, and,  though  its  discoverer  is  banished,  brings  about 
the  ruin  of  both  the  dynasties.  The  astronomical  chiefs  of 
the  third  prince  in  the  Hia  line  are  put  to  death  for  drunk- 

l  Lunyu,  III.  9.  *  Shu-king,  Pt.  III.  B.  in. 

21 


322  STRUCTURES. 

enness,  and  his  general  must  pronounce  a  serious  temper- 
ance discourse  to  his  troops.1  The  merciful  reliance  of 
Yu's  creed  on  moral  forces  yields  to  the  maxim  that  "  when 
sternness  overcomes  compassion,  things  are  successful." 

But  the  ideal  endures  in  great  ministers,  who  teach  nobly 
The  first  and  reprove  bravely,  and  in  great  emperors,  who 
deliverer,  represent  the  people  and  the  throne  in  one.  Four 
hundred  and  thirty  years  after  Yu,  arises  a  hero  of  the 
highest  order,  —  "  T'ang  the  victorious,"  — who  renews  the 
imperial  glories,  as  founder  of  the  line  of  Shang.  He  is  a 
Chinese  emancipator ;  visiting  Heaven's  vengeance  on  a 
degenerate  State,  and  appeals  to  the  people,  yet  as  their 
master  :  — 

"  Come,  ye  multitudes,  listen  to  me.  Not  I,  the  little  child,  dare 
undertake  rebellion.  But  I  dare  not  refuse  to  punish  the  tyrant,  as  I 
fear  God.  Aid  me  and  I  will  greatly  reward  you  ;  but  if  you  do  not,  I 
will  put  you  to  death,  you  and  your  children  :  you  will  find  no  forgive- 
ness.1' - 

He  asserts,  in  the  spirit  of  Mencius,  the  universality  of 
conscience,  and  the  duty  of  the  prince  to  compel  justice  : 

"  The  Supreme  has  given  a  moral  sense,  even  to  the  humblest  of 
the  people.  If  they  conform  to  it,  their  nature  is  justified  in  them  ; 
if  not,  it  is  the  prince  that  must  cause  them  tranquilly  to  follow  its 
path.  And  now  I  know  not  whether  I  may  not  offend  the  powers 
above  and  beneath  ;  I  am  fearful  and  trembling.  If  you  do  any  thing 
good,  I  will  not  dare  to  conceal  it ;  and  for  the  evil  in  me,  I  would  not 
dare  to  forgive  myself."  8 

His  ministers  are  no  less  admirable.  "  WHat  Shun 
was  to  Yao,  and  Yu  to  Shun,  and  Yih  to  Yu,  that  is  E 
to  T'ang." 

As  tutor  to  the  young  prince,  he  teaches  that  "  virtue 
begins  at  home,  and  is  completed  in  the  State,"  and  that 
moral  retribution  is  inevitable ;  and  when  his  pupil  proves 
unfit  to  rule,  he  imprisons  him  till  he  reforms.4 

1  Shu-king,  Pt.  III.  B.  iv.  2  Ibid.,  Pt.  IV.  B.  i. 

8  Ibid.,  B.  m.  <  Ibid.,  B.  iv. 


GOVERNMENT.  323 

"  Heaven  loves  only  the  reverent ;  the  people  cherish  only  the 
benevolent  ruler  ;  the  spirits  accept  only  the  sacrifice  of  the  sin- 
cere."1 

Resigning  his  functions,  he  enjoins  on  the  emperor  mod- 
esty, humanity,  favor  to  the  best  and  fittest  men,  supreme 
regard  to  principles  rather  than  formal  precepts,  love  of 
goodness  as  the  only  rule  of  virtue,  and  recognition  of  the 
right  of  the  whole  people  to  full  opportunity  of  moral  and 
rational  growth.2 

Yu  enters  office  with  the  brave  declaration  that  "  States 
are  not  founded,  nor  rulers  appointed,  to  minister  to  the 
pleasure  of  one,  but  for  the  good  government  of  the 
people."3 

"  Heaven  is  all-seeing,  all-knowing.  Let  the  wise  king  take  it  for 
pattern." 

"  Before  shield  and  spear  are  used,  one  should  examine  himself." 

"  Indulging  a  consciousness  of  goodness  is  the  way  to  lose  it." 

"Boasting  of  ability  destroys  the  merit  it  might  gain."  4 

"  For  all  affairs  let  there  be  preparation." 

"  Do  not  be  ashamed  of  mistakes,  and  thus  make  them  crimes."8 

The  Emperor  asking  to  be  taught  the  best  aim,  Yu 
replies, — 

"  If  in  learning  there  be  an  humble  will,  and  striving  to  be  earnest, 
wisdom  will  surely  come.  Follow  the  perfect  ways  of  former  kings, 
and  you  shall  not  err."  6 

A  democratic  ruler  is  Pwan-kang,  who  forbids  the 
princes  to  "  suppress  the  complaints  of  this  people ; " 
rebukes  "  noisy  talk  which  would  silence  the  cry  of  the 
oppressed,"  and  gives  free  audience  to  all  men. 

"  Think  reverently,  ye  chiefs,  of  my  multitudes."  "  I  will  not 
employ  those  who  seek  gain  ;  but  those  who  labor  vigorously  for  the 
life  and  growth  of  the  people  I  will  use  and  respect."  7 

1  Shu-king,  Pt.  IV.  B.  v.  »  Ibid.  8  Ibid.,  B.  VI. 

*  Ibid.,  B.  vra.  «  Ibid.,  B.  vmu  «  Ibid.  »  Ibid.,  B.  vn. 


324  STRUCTURES. 

There  are  great  blanks  in  the  story  of  the  Shang 
dynasty  ;  but,  as  the  vices  of  its  rulers  grow,  it 
hastens  to  its  fall.  The  wise  minister  lifts  up  his 


The  second  voice  to  echo  the  cry  of  the  people  to  Heaven  for 

Deliverer.  .  J  . 

deliverance  ;  the  wise  tutor  advises  the  king's  son, 
who  sees  with  grief  the  dissoluteness  of  the  court  and  the 
miseries  of  the  masses,  to  flee  from  the  coming  storm. 
Chow-sin's  barbarities  rouse  the  great  insurrection  of  Woo, 
whose  whole  army  has  the  hearing  of  his  explanations  and 
excuses  for  that  step,  the  most  famous  in  Chinese  history, 
by  which  all  subsequent  revolts  against  oppression  are  jus- 
tified. Woo  is  a  model  revolutionist.  His  victory  shall 
"  redound  to  his  father's  honor  ;  "  his  defeat  "  only  to  his 
own  disgrace,  as  a  little  child,  and  not  good."  His  speeches 
are  always  opened  with  wise  proverbs,  followed  by  rousing 
exhortations  to  battle  for  righteousness  and  the  ancient 
laws,  —  like  wild  beasts,  yet  not  harming  those  who  submit, 
—  by  rehearsal  of  the  crimes  of  Chow,  and  of  his  own  duties 
as  the  instrument  of  Heaven.  Woo  is  a  great  organizer 
as  well  as  soldier. 

"  He  had  only  to  let  his  robes  fall  down,  and  fold  his  hands,  —  after 
teaching  the  people  the  five  great  social  relations,  caring  for  their  com- 
fort and  faith,  and  honoring  merit,  —  and  the  empire  was  in  perfect 
order."  1 

But  a  Chinese  ruler  is  nothing,  if  not  a  philosopher. 
And  Woo  does  not  fail  to  inquire  of  his  wisest  man  as  to 
the  real  constitution  of  that  human  nature  which  he  pro- 
poses to  perfect.  The  Shu-king  accordingly  gives  us  what 
it  calls  the  "  Great  Plan,"  2  a  numerically  formulized  de- 
scription of  Man  and  the  Universe  with  special  relation  to 
the  ideal  of  right  government  ;  which  is  a  striking  picture 
of  the  old  Chinese  mind,  as  well  as  perhaps  the  earliest 

1  Shu-king,  Pt.  V.  B.  in. 

*  Legge  ascribes  it  to  the  great  Yu,  and  thinks  it  was,  at  all  events,  older  than  Woo.    Shu- 
king,  Pt.  V.  B.  iv. 


GOVERNMENT.  325 

attempt  of  the  kind  in  history.  We  shall  here  draw  atten- 
tion only  to  its  statement  of  the  eight  objects  of  govern- 
mental attention,  —  namely,  means  of  subsistence,  materials 
of  traffic,  rites,  public  works,  instruction,  penalties,  enter- 
tainment of  guests,  and  the  army,  —  and  to  its  moral 
ideal  of  royalty,  which  is  in  the  loftiest  vein  of  Chinese 
political  ethics. 

"  The  ruler,  having  concentrated  in  himself  the  five  forms  of  happi- 
ness, —  health,  wealth,  long  life,  peace  of  mind  and  love  of  virtue,  and 
the  crown  of  success  in  life,  —  and  fixed  his  ideal  of  virtue,  diffuses 
these  among  the  people  ;  who,  resting  in  his  perfection,  enable  him  to 
preserve  it."  "Do  not  oppress  the  friendless  or  childless;  do  not 
fear  the  great.  Cause  people  of  ability  to  improve  their  powers,  and 
the  State  will  prosper."  "  Without  swerving  or  partiality,  without 
selfish  likes  or  dislikes,  pursue  the  royal  path  of  virtue.  ...  If  gov- 
ernment is  wise,  heroic  men  are  eminent,  and  in  the  families  of  the 
people  are  prosperity  and  peace." 

Then  we  have  the  noble  figure  of  King  Woo's  brother 
and  grand  councillor,  the  good  Duke  of  Tcheou,  The 
who  stands  in  this  far  time  an  earlier  Confucius,  Lawgiver, 
with  happier  power  to  mould  his  age.  This  is  the  tradi- 
tional Father  of  Chinese  Law,  the  ideal  of  Chinese  politi- 
ical,  as  well  as  personal,  virtue.  He  is  introduced  to  us  in 
the  pleasing  legend  of  "  The  Metal-bound  Coffer,"  praying, 
mace  in  hand,  to  his  great  ancestors  for  the  privilege  of 
dying  in  the  place  of  his  royal  brother,  who  is  sick  unto 
death  to  the  great  distress  of  the  people.  The  king,  how- 
ever, recovers,  and  the  prayer  is  preserved  in  the  archives 
of  the  State.  On  the  death  of  Woo,  the  good  Duke  is 
shamelessly  accused  of  treason,  and  goes  silently  into 
exile.  But  a  great  storm  arising,  the  coffer  is  opened, 
and  his  fraternal  devotion  revealed  ;  together  with  the  fact 
that  he  had  enjoined  on  the  officers  not  to  make  it  known. 
The  exile  returns  in  triumph,  and  the  penal  storm  with- 
draws.1 

i  Shu-king,  Pt.  V.  B.  vi. 


326  STRUCTURES. 

Great  is  the  wisdom  of  this  Tcheou-kung,  learned  in  his 
youth  in  the  hard  school  of  suffering  for  the  sake  of  others, 
being  punished  for  the  faults  of  the  young  prince  with 
whom  he  was  brought  up.  He  "  teaches  the  king  how  to 
govern  ;  "  ascribing  the  success  of  princes  to  the  righteous- 
ness of  their  civil-service  rules  ;  rebuking  rebellious  chiefs, 
while  showing  leniency  to  their  offences  ;  and  proving  his 
principle  of  fitness  to  functions  by  making  it  the  key  to 
the  whole  national  history.  His  advice  to  Prince  Fung 
must  be  quoted  :  — 

"  '  Deal  with  evil  as  if  it  were  a  disease  in  your  own  person,  and 
the  people  will  put  away  their  faults.  Deal  with  them  as  if  you  were 
guarding  your  infants.  Do  not  cut  off  noses  or  ears  at  your  private 
inclination,  but  let  there  be  fixed  laws  for  the  proper  officers  to  ob- 
serve. In  examining  evidences  of  crime,  reflect  on  them  five,  six,  yea 
ten  days,  or  three  months  :  then  act  boldly  on  your  decision.  See 
that  the  laws  are  righteous,  not  warped  by  your  caprice  ;  even  then 
you  must  say,  '  perhaps  they  are  not  yet  wholly  in  accord  with  right.' 
If  you  cannot  manage  your  own  household  but  by  terror  and  violence, 
you  set  aside  the  charge  of  a  king,  and  seek  to  rule  in  defiance  of  vir- 
tue." l  "  The  ruin  of  States  may  be  traced  to  criminal  use  of  spirits. 
Love  labor  and  youth,  and  indulge  in  eating  and  drinking  only  when 
you  can  observe  decent  limits.  Warn  your  officials  of  this,  O  Fung, 
and  sternly  avoid  intemperance.'1  2 

And  here  are  counsels  to  a  minister  :  — 

"  Remember  that  the  end  of  punishment  is  to  make  an  end  of  pun- 
ishing." "  Be  not  passionate  with  the  obstinate,  but  forbearing. 
Seek  not  every  quality  in  one  person."  "  Advance  the  good,  that  they 
who  are  not  so  may  be  led  to  follow  their  example."  "  Seek  the  judg- 
ment of  the  people  about  affairs."  <k  Lay  good  plans  before  your  sov- 
ereign, and  ascribe  their  merit  to  him." 3 

Mencius  says  of  the  great  Duke  that  he  sought  to  unite 
the  virtues  of  T'ang,  Wan,  and  Woo.  "  If  he  saw  any  thing 
in  them  not  suited  to  his  time,  he  meditated  on  it  into  the 
night,  and  when  he  had  solved  the  problem,  he  sat  waiting 
for  the  morning."  4 

i  Shu-king,  Pt.  V.  B.  ix.  2  Ibid.,  B.  x.  8  Ibid.,  B.  xxi.          *  Menc.  IV.  n.  20. 


GOVERNMENT.  327 

With  the  Duke  of  Tcheou,  of  whom  Mr.  Legge  says,  "  I 
know  not  the  statesman  of  any  nation  with  whom  The 
his  countrymen  need  shrink  from  comparing  him,"  Tcheou 
we  enter  on  the  second  great  political  organization, 
ascribed  by  the  Chinese  to  very  early  times.  It  is  declared 
to  have  been  modelled  on  that  of  Yao  and  Shun,  but  is  in 
fact  much  more  elaborate.  Certain  new  offices  are  to  be 
filled  "  only  when  the  men  are  found  fit  to  fill  them'' 1  The 
number  of  ministers  is  still  six:  but  a  department  of  War 
is  added.  The  princes  attend  court  with  tribute  and  hom- 
age every  sixth  year,  and  the  king's  tours  are  every  twelfth. 
But  the  bowed  heads  bring  counsel  as  well  as  homage,  and 
exhort  him  "  to  be  reverent  in  his  function,  and  preserve 
the  heritage  of  our  ancestors  from  harm."  2  At  his  inaugu- 
ration the  king  receives  a  symbolic  cup  and  mace-cover 
from  the  minister  of  rites ;  and  listens  to  the  testamentary 
charge  of  the  last  ruler  to  his  successor,  "to  follow  the 
rules  of  Tcheou,  adhere  to  the  laws  and  maintain  harmony," 
read  by  the  national  annalist,  —  responding  with  self-depre- 
ciation and  awe  before  the  magnitude  of  his  task.3  On  the 
Grand  Banner,  besides  figures  of  the  sun  and  moon,  and 
the  dragon,  symbols  of  authority,  are  inscribed  the  names 
of  meritorious  living  ministers.4 

The  Duke  of  Tcheou  had  declared  the  end  of  punishment 
to  be  "making  an  end  of  punishing."  The  prince  of  Leu 
"  thinks  with  reverence  of  penalty,  because  its  end  is  the 
promotion  of  virtue." 

"  Gain  got  by  penal  decisions  is  no  prize,  but  a  heaping  up  of  guilt, 
and  will  have  its  reward  :  stand  in  awe  of  Heaven  ! 

"  I  will  tell  you,  O  ye  rulers,  how  to  make  punishment  a  blessing. 
Hear  both  sides,  and  carefully  adjust  the  case  to  its  proper  penalty. 
The  dangers  to  be  avoided  are  the  being  warped  by  power,  or  private 
grudge,  or  female  solicitation,  or  bribes  ;  all  of  which  make  the  judge's 
sin  equal  to  the  criminal's  at  his  bar.  In  doubtful  cases,  infliction  of 

1  Shu-king,  Pt.  V.  B.  xx.  *  Ibid.,  B.  xxin.  s  Ibid.,  B.  xxii. 

4  Legge' s  note  to  B.  xxv. 


328  STRUCTURES. 

punishment  should  be  forborne.  The  chastisement  of  fines  is  short 
of  death,  but  would  produce  extreme  distress.  Therefore  only  good 
Persotis  should  determine  criminal  cases.  Settle  them  with  compas- 
sion and  reverence,  and  strike  the  proper  mean."  ' 

The  further  history  of  the  Tcheou  dynasty,  as  sketched 
by  fragments  in  the  closing  chapters  of  the  Shu-king,  shows 
them  at  frequent  war  with  rebel  chieftains  and  with  border 
tribes.  During  the  long  reigns  of  Ching  and  Khang,  the  vir- 
tues of  the  emperors  secured  profound  peace,  and,  accord- 
ing to  commentators,  punishments  were  out  of  use  for  forty 
years  !  Yet  the  Shu-king  gives  no  details  of  this  blessed 
period.  King  Muh  charges  his  minister  to  make  him  no 
unworthy  descendant  of  Wan  and  Woo  ;  also  to  remember 
the  hardships  of  the  people  in  the  extremes  of  summer  and 
winter.  He  "  rises  at  midnight  to  meditate  "  how  he  can 
avoid  the  faults  that  beset  him,  and  obtain  help  in  "  correct- 
ing his  bad  heart."  But  the  path  of  the  line  of  Tcheou  is 
downward.  Vicious  monarchs,  corrupted  by  their  wives 
Fail  of  the  and  favorites,  are  set  aside  by  popular  revolts  and 
Tcheou.  by  leagued  nobles.  Petty  States  are  growing  into 
power,  and  busy  in  repelling  the  inroads  of  free  hordes,  or 
absorbing  their  territory.2  We  have  select  instances  of 
personal  loyalty  like  thajt  of  the  Duke  of  Shaou,  who  sacri- 
fices his  own  son  to  save  his  prince ;  and  some  of  a  less 
questionable  virtue,  as  in  Pih-k'in's  orders  to  his  soldiers  on 
the  march,  not  to  injure  cattle  or  horses  by  traps,  nor  to 
shut  them  up,  nor  to  leave  the  ranks  to  pursue  them,  nor 
to  fail  of  returning  them,  when  astray,  to  their  owners.3 

By  the  close  of  the  period  here  gone  over  in  patches 
(B.C.  620),  the  feudal  empire  of  the  Tcheou  was  in  a  fair 
way  to  dissolution,  and  the  perplexing  strifes  of  the  rival 
States  are  further  recorded  by  Confucius  in  his  meagre 
annals,  entitled  "Spring  and  Autumn  Classic." 

But  the  Shu-king  fragments  by  no  means  represent  the 

)  Pt.  V.  B.  xxvn.  2  Ibid.,  B.  XXVHI.  8  Ibid.,  B.  xxix. 


GOVERNMENT.  329 

whole  national  indebtedness  to  that  grand  epoch  of  recon- 
struction which  Chinese  tradition  associates  with  the  name 
of  Tcheou. 


The  Institutes  of  Tcheou,  imperfectly  given  in  the  Shu- 
king,  are  (ideally)  presented  in  an  elaborate  descrip-  THK 
tion,  in  which  the  national  passion  for  subdividing  TCHEOU-LI, 

r  .  ....  —,    .  .  .  OR  INSTI- 

functions,  multiplying  officials,  regulating  minute  TUTES  OF 


details,  in  short  for  governmental  manipulation  and 
care,  is  carried  not  only  beyond  all  possibilities  of  OngiH 
fact,  but  beyond  the  power  of  most  American  readers  to 
conceive. 

The  Tcheou-li,1  in  its  original  form  written,  according  to 
Confucius,  on  tablets  of  bamboo,  and  traditionally  ascribed 
to  the  great  Duke,  purports  to  record  the  political  and  civil 
organization  of  China  between  the  twelfth  and  eighth  cen- 
turies B.C.,  as  proposed  by  this  statesman,  and  accepted  by 
the  tribes  after  the  overthrow  of  the  Shang. 

There  are  many  reasons,  besides  its  important  differences 
from  the  Shu-king,  for  believing  it  to  be  the  construction 
of  a  much  later  period.  Mencius  reports  that  the  princes, 
disliking  the  arrangements  of  dignities  by  the  house  of 
Tcheou,  had  made  way  with  their  records  before  his  time.2 
Confucius  leads  us  to  infer  that  the  present  Tcheou-li  was 
not  in  existence  in  his  time  ;  for  he  is  far  from  having  re- 
produced its  rules,  and  never  cites  it  in  his  works.  Matou- 
anlin,  accepting  it  as  on  the  whole  authentic,  admits  that, 
while  it  represents  the  laws  of  the  first  three  dynasties,  it 
could  never  afterwards  be  put  into  practice.3  Its  internal 
characteristics  are  the  strongest  proof  of  its  late  origin  ; 
and  many  adverse  judgments  on  its  historical  value  have 
been  given  by  Chinese  critics.  A  great  hold  on  the  na- 
tional faith  has  nevertheless  been  secured  by  the  highly 

1  Translated  with  incredible  patience  by  M.  Ed.  Biot,  with  the  aid  of  Stan.  Julien. 

2  Menc.  V.  H.  2.  3  See  Biot's  Introd.  p.  27. 


33O  STRUCTURES. 

ideal  form  in  which  it  is  cast.  A  judgment  by  the  great 
critic  and  philosopher  Chu-hi,  in  favor  of  its  antiquity  as  a 
whole,  added  to  its  repute.  It  was  a  text-book  in  the  great 
epochs  of  the  Han  and  the  Soung,  and  has  been  much 
commentated  at  intervals  since.  Kien-lung  added  it  by 
edict  to  the  canonical  "Classics,"  in  I/54.1 

Its  value  for  us  is  in  its  illustrating,  more  than  any  other 
work,  the  Chinese  constructive  ideal  of  imperial  govern- 
ment as  a  ready-made,  crystallized  fact.  Biot  thinks  it  rep- 
resents the  important  epoch  of  transition  from  pastoral  to 
agricultural  life,  and  the  permanent  settlement  of  the  tribes 
under  a  uniform  administration.  That  this  is  the  basis  of 
the  original  work  is  probable  enough.  But  it  is  scarcely 
possible  to  conceive  that  such  refined  and  complex  forces 
of  organization  on  the  one  hand,  and  such  extreme  plas- 
ticity on  the  other,  as  its  present  form  implies,  could  have 
existed  at  so  early  a  stage  of  national  progress. 

The  land  allows  itself  to  be  divided  into  three  definite 
Mechanical  classes  by  public  survey,  with  such  marvellous  geo- 
Divisions.  graphicai  adaptation  that  a  certain  quantity  of  each 
class  can  be  allotted  to  every  family !  The  cultivators 
submit  to  be  divided  into  groups  of  nine  families  each, 
portioned  with  lots  of  equal  size,  symmetrically  arranged  in 
squares  for  purposes  of  irrigation,  and  each  enclosed  by  a 
trench  and  path,  with  a  centre  lot  for  public  uses  ;  the 
whole  ten  again  surrounded  by  a  larger  conduit,  and  each 
hundred  by  a  small  canal  and  road ;  and  each  thousand  by 
a  larger  canal  and  highway ;  and  every  ten  thousand  by  a 
river  with  a  great  road  beside  it.2  How  the  rivers  were 
squared  with  the  watercourses,  whose  sizes  and  lines  were 
thus  fixed  by  rule,  the  world-shaping  dynasty  does  not  in- 
form us.  But  the  limits  of  cities,  cantons,  principalities, 
also  follow  official  measurements,  made  with  the  shadow  of 
the  sun.3 

1  Blot's  Introd.,  pp.  32-35.  2   Tcheou-li,  B.  xv.,  xvi.  3  Ibid.,  B.  xxxm. 


GOVERNMENT.  33! 

The  territory  is  again  divided  into  twelve  sections,  cor- 
responding to  the  twelve  celestial  signs  ;  and  into  nine 
concentric  zones  around  the  capital  for  regulation  of  trib- 
utes and  taxes.  And  the  whole  population  is  organized  by 
families  for  public  labors ;  also  for  mutual  service  in  bury- 
ing the  dead,  supporting  the  poor,  relieving  the  unfortunate, 
performing  rites,  and  giving  honor  to  good  men.  Groups 
of  five  and  its  multiples  form  sections,  communes,  cantons, 
departments,  districts  :  each  group  having  its  elder  (or  patri- 
arch), as  a  centre  of  harmony,  and  all  working  to  the  com- 
mon good.1 

The  village  system  of  government  is  in  operation,  but 
under  the  administration  of  a  "  grand  director,"  village 
who  registers  names,  supervises  lodges  of  mutual  system- 
aid,  organizes  sowing  and  reaping,  fixes  the  corvte  con- 
tingents, and  collects  the  grain  from  the  States'  land.2 
An  officer  determines  what  shall  be  sown  there,  and 
how  the  land  shall  be  improved.  Another  determines 
when  trees  shall  be  cut  and  the  pastures  burned  over. 
Others  regulate  taxes  and  labors  by  the  good  or  bad  for- 
tunes of  the  year,  or  by  the  quality  of  the  land,  and  in 
inverse  ratio  to  faithfulness  of  culture?  The  very  markets 
are  in  squares,  and  attended  by  officers  who  determine 
prices,  punish  frauds,  examine  the  quality  of  goods,  and 
levy  entrance  and  exit  duties  in  port,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
poor  and  old  and  the  "  children  of  the  State."  4  Of  course 
weights  and  measures  are  equalized,  quarrels  appeased,  and 
virtue  sped. 

A  minister  oversees  the  civil  service  for  the  promotion 
of  worthy   persons,   according    to   three   tests   of  Govern. 
merit:  (i)  the  six  virtues,  (2)  the  six  good  deeds,  m™*™d 
(3)  the  six  sciences.5     As  already  stated,  the  masses 
are  convoked  at  the  gates  of  the  capital  in  times  of  national 

1  Tckeou-li.  B.  xi.  2  Ibid.,  B.  xv.,  xvi. 

8  Ibid.,  B.  xvi.,  xxxii.,  xin.,  xn.  *  B.  xiv.  6  B.  ix. 


334  STRUCTURES. 

.  IL        Multitudes."    He  instructs  them  by  twelve  "  rites,"  l 

Director  of  ••-»•• 

the  Mum-  each  teaching^  some  form  of  virtue.  Among  them 
he  inculcates  the  excellence  of  hereditary  occupa- 
tions. He  applies  twelve  rules  for  increasing  population, 
by  alleviating  public  burdens  in  times  of  famine,  and  six 
forms  of  succor  to  all  needy  people.2  He  is  grand  sur- 
veyor, —  measuring  off  the  squares  by  the  gnomon,  —  and 
regulator  of  agriculture,  teaching  how  to  multiply  animals 
and  plants,  and  to  sow  and  fell  to  the  best  advantage.2  He 
groups  the  people  and  consecrates  the  fields  to  the  genius 
of  the  land  and  grain.2  His  department  includes  markets, 
village  affairs,  collection  of  grain,  corvtes,  marriage-laws, 
disputes,  equalizing  taxes  and  punishing  idleness,  distribu- 
tion of  imperial  gifts  on  periodical  circuits  through  the 
country,  music  and  dancing  at  the  religious  rites,  censor- 
ship of  morals  in  prince  and  people  ; 3  and  to  these  is  added 
the  care  of  the  royal  game  preserves,  where  humanity  to 
animals  is  enforced.4 

A  third  minister  presides  over  forms  of  worship,  and 
m  Pavs  homage  to  ancient  sovereigns  by  nineteen 
Minister  of  kinds  of  rite,  classified  according  to  their  spirit  or 
ltes>  purpose.6  Here  are  elaborate  details  of  sacrificial 
emblems,  symbolical  dresses,  talismanic  tablets  borne  by 
officials,  or  bringing  virtue  to  places  and  occasions  ;  augu- 
ries, burial  customs,  invocations,  and  salutations,  all  of 
which  are  numerically  regulated.6  <c  The  musical  virtues  " 
and  "musical  conversation"  are  taught  the  sons  of  digni- 
taries by  this  bureau ;  the  virtues  being  concord,  reverence 
for  spirits,  respect  for  superiors,  filial  love  and  friendship.7 
By  its  instructions  in  the  twelve  tones  and  the  six  dances, 
it  brings  into  sympathetic  harmony  all  forms  and  creatures, 
their  "  spirits  "  coming  forth  to  bless  occasions  and  unite 

»  Tcheou-li,  B.  ix.  *  Ibid.  «  B.  x.-xvi. 

*  B.  xvi.  6  B.  xvm. 

c  B.  xvni.-xx.,  xxiv.-xxv.  7  B.  xxn. 


GOVERNMENT.  335 

mankind.1  Sacred  formulas  for  sacrifices,  treaties,  prayers, 
and  thanksgivings  emanate  from  this  source.2  Under  the 
same  religious  charge  are  the  royal  chariots  and  standards.8 
Here  too  belongs  the  Grand  Annalist,  who  registers  all 
public  proceedings,  corrects  the  calendar  for  the  regula- 
tion of  labor,  divides  the  land  into  dependencies  of  special 
asterisms,  and  preserves  the  oldest  recorded  traditions  of 
the  nation.4 

The  Minister  of  War  maintains  obedience  in  the  lesser 
kingdoms,  fixes  military  contingents,  presides  over  IV 
minute  ceremonies  that  make  royal  hunting  excur-  Ministerof 
sions  a  kind  of  ritual.5  His  department,  besides 
military  examination  and  instruction,  has  charge  of  be- 
stowing honors  for  brilliant  actions,  by  inscribing  the 
names  of  the  doers  on  the  royal  standard,  or  endowing 
them  with  untaxed  lands.6  It  attends  to  sacred  usages 
about  fire,  to  the  holy  cup  used  at  sacrifices,  to  the  puri- 
fication of  houses  from  disease,  to  the  care  of  roads  and 
the  circulation  of  products,  to  the  etiquette  of  chariots 
and  the  honors  paid  to  the  first  breeder  of  horses,  and  to 
their  presiding  genii.7  It  tames  wild  animals,  destroys 
noxious  birds,  and  provides  young  domestic  ones  for  old 
men  to  raise,  as  symbols  of  renewed  youth.8  It  equalizes 
weights  and  measures,  and  receives  tributes  from  foreign 
tribes.9 

The  Minister  of  Criminal  Justice  is  at  the  head  of  the 
central  court  of  final  appeal,  securing  equity  by  tes-  v  Minis_ 
timony  of  two  classes  of  officials,  and,  in  capital  ter  of  jus- 
cases,  by  the  voice  of  the  people.10  The  parties 
bring  a  sum  of  money,  if  able  ;  but  if  poor,  a  complainant 
who  has  failed  of  a  just  hearing  has  but  to  stand,  for  three 
days  (!),  before  the  red  stone,  or  strike  the  drum  at  the 

1  Tchemt-li,  B.  xxii.  8  B.  xxv.  8  B.  xxvn. 

4  B.  xxvi.  s  B.  xxix.  8  B.  xxx. 

7  B.  xxx.-xxxin.  »  B.  xxx.  9  B.  xxxni.  10  B.  xxxv. 


332  STRUCTURES. 

emergency  and  on  the  accession  of  a  prince,  and  arranged, 
according  to  age  and  place,  by  their  prefects.  Their  judg- 
ment is  also  taken  in  cases  of  capital  offence.1  Passports 
are  provided  by  the  village  elders,  stamped  with  symbolical 
figures  of  creatures  and  elements.2  Every  thing  relating  to 
individuals  is  officially  recorded,  down  to  their  private 
character,  their  happiness  and  misfortune,  health  and  re- 
source, for  the  Emperor's  paternal  use.3 

A  minister  protects  the  people  against  oppressive  chiefs, 
but  no  mercy  is  shown  subjects  who  expel  their  prince.4 
Disputes  are  settled  by  testimony  of  persons  of  the  same 
group  with  the  parties.5  The  great  drum  hangs  at  the 
palace  gate  for  those  who  desire  justice  at  the  imperial 
hands.6  Food  is  provided  at  the  royal  table  for  State 
orphans,  old  officials,  the  infirm  and  poor.7  Travelling 
officials  bestow  aid  on  the  needy  in  the  royal  name.8  There 
are  no  other  slaves  than  public  ones,  for  crime,  and  these 
only  of  middle  age.,  The  aged  and  the  young  are  also  ex- 
empt from  corvfe,  as  well  as  strangers  newly  arrived.9  Every 
man  must  marry  by  the  time  he  is  thirty  years  old,  and 
women  before  twenty.10 

The  Tcheou-li  Emperor,  as  in  the  Hia  and  Shang,  is 
owner  of  the  soil,  installs  princes  and  confers  fiefs. 

The  ad- 

ministra-  But  the  great  vassals,  the  successors  of  the  tribal 
chiefs,  have  received  more  permanent  authority, 
for  which  they  pay  tributes  out  of  the  incomes  of  their 
States.  The  unity  of  the  kingdoms  is  maintained  by 
mutual  visits  and  interrogations  between  the  princes  and 
by  emissaries  of  the  Board  of  Justice,  who  disseminate  the 
imperial  love  and  care.  Every  twelve  years  the  Emperor 
makes  the  circuit  of  his  States,  "  to  harmonize  and  tran- 


1  Tcheou-li,  B.  xi.,  xxxv.  »  B.  xi.,  xxxvin.  8  B.  xxxvm. 

*  B.  xxix.  5  B.  x.  6  B.  xxxi. 

i  B.  iv.  8  B.  x.  9  B.  xvi.,  xxxvi.  10  B.  xin. 


GOVERNMENT.  333 

quillize."  The  intermediate  years  are  devoted  to  consolidat- 
ing the  Empire,  each  in  some  special  way.  Thus  the  first 
year  is  given  to  statistical  and  other  reports  ;  the  third,  to 
their  verification  ;  the  fifth,  to  general  examinations  ;  the 
seventh,  to  re-unions  of  interpreters  to  harmonize  language  ; 
the  ninth,  to  meetings  of  blind  musicians  and  annalists, 
who  improve  sounds  and  letters ;  the  eleventh,  to  unifying 
weights  and  measures,  and  verifying  honorary  tablets.1 

In  the  opening  of  spring,  the  breaking  of  consecrated  or 
public  ground  with  the  plough  by  the  Emperor,  who  makes 
three  furrows  ;  by  his  councillors,  who  make  five ;  by  the 
feudatories,  who  make  nine  ;  and  by  representatives  of 
the  people,  who  finish  the  field,  —  symbolizes  the  unity  of 
the  commonwealth  on  the  basis  of  agricultural  labor.2 

The  Prime  Minister  and  his  five  colleagues  are  entitled 
Heaven,  Earth,  and  the  Four  Seasons,  as  symbols  Board  of 
of  universal  government.     They  are  supported  by  Ministers- 
a  mighty  host  of   subordinates,  distinguished  as  graduates 
of  three  classes.     Thirty-four  hundred  of  these  are      L 
enumerated    as    in    the     Prime    Minister's    special   Prime 
charge,  with  an  indefinite  number  besides,  busied 
in    more   than    sixty  sub-departments,  whose  chiefs  have 
distinct  titles.     His  government  is  an  arithmetical  mystery, 
employing  six  forms  of  administration,  —  eight  of  official 
regulations,  eight  of   cantonal   statutes,  eight   ruling  prin- 
ciples, nine  kinds  of  taxes,  nine  associative  ties.3     One  of 
his  aids  applies  six  principles  to  the  investigation  of  official 
conduct,  making  his  circuit  with  a  little  bell,  crying  woe  to 
all  law-breakers.4     His  Chief  of  Records  reports  the  statis- 
tics of   administration,  personal  property,  families,  lands, 
geographical  features,  and  animal  life,  and  audits  the  taxes. 
Finally,  he  aids  the  sovereign  in  performing  ceremonies  and 
rites. 

The  second  minister  (Ta-sse-thu)   is  "  Director  of  the 

1  Tckeou-li,  B.  XXXVHI.  s  B.  iv.  8  B.  n.  *  B.  m. 


33^  STRUCTURES. 

palace  gate.1  The  penal  code  of  the  Tcheou-li  has  its  muti- 
lations and  other  barbarities,  all  of  which,  however,  are  to 
be  applied  only  after  strict  inquiry  and  within  well-defined 
limits.2  Here  belong  elaborate  rules  for  reception  of  princes 
at  court,  and  their  hospitable  treatment  on  the  way  to  the 
capital,  with  endless  forms  of  "  interrogation,  invitation, 
consolation,  obeisance  ;  "  3  also  the  facilitation  of  inter- 
course between  the  States  by  means  of  passports  and  gifts, 
and  whatever  conduces  to  make  known  the  providential 
will  and  purpose  of  the  sovereign,  so  that  it  shall  not  be 
disobeyed,  but  fulfilled  by  all.3  By  the  itinerant  corps  of 
this  bureau  is  registered  the  moral  and  physical  status  of 
every  family  and  neighborhood,  with  all  events  that  have  a 
bearing  on  public  and  private  happiness.  Its  officials  over- 
see walking  in  the  country  ;  clearing  streets  for  the  passage 
of  the  Emperor  or  army  ;  removal  of  criminals  and  mourners 
from  the  sacrificial  rites,  and  destruction  of  certain  noxious 
animals  and  plants.4 

The  final  section  of  the  Tcheou-li  on  the  Board  of  Public 
vi.  Board  Works  is  wanting.  Great  sums  were  offered  for 
of  works.  jts  rec0very  in  the  revival  of  letters  by  the  Han, 
but  it  was  not  found.  But  a  memoir  on  the  functions  of 
this  ministry  and  the  industries  over  which  it  presided, 
contributed  at  that  time  by  the  prince  of  Hokien  from  his 
famous  collection,  was  added  to  the  Tcheou-li  in  after 
ages.  It  is  of  great  value  as  an  ideal  picture  of  labor-, 
superintendence,  as  well  as  of  the  love  and  patience  be- 
stowed by  this  assiduous  race  on  every  form  of  work. 

The  "hundred  artisans"  are  distributed  among  the  fol- 
"The  Ar-  lowing  six  classes  of  laborers  arranged  by  functions, 
tisans."  the  word  hundred  meaning  doubtless  a  great  number : 

"  To  deliberate  on  governmental  rules  is  the  office  of  the  princes  ; 
to  put  these  in  practice  is  the  office  of  prefects  and  graduates  ;  to  ex- 

1  Tcheou-li,  B.  xxxv.  2  B.  xxxvi.  3  B.  xxxvin.-xxxix.  4  B.  xxxvn. 


GOVERNMENT.  337 

amine  the  form  and  quality,  and  distinguish  the  uses  of  instruments  of 
labor,  is  that  of  the  hundred  workmen  ;  to  transport  valuables  to  the 
four  quarters  of  the  Empire,  that  of  merchants  and  travelling  agents ; 
to  increase  the  products  of  the  earth,  that  of  cultivators  ;  to  work  in 
silk  and  hemp  for  their  perfect  uses,  that  of  the  working  women  of  the 
court."  l 

Here  follows  a  sentence  of  Labor-wisdom,  still  valid  and 
needed  :  — 

"  Wise  men  invent ;  skilful  men  have  combined  what  these  began. 
They  who  preserve  from  age  to  age  the  processes  thus  discovered  are 
artisans.  All  the  operations  executed  by  the  hundred  artisans  are  the 
work  of  the  wise.  'Twas  they  that  forged  metal  to  make  swords, 
hardened  earth  to  make  utensils,  built  vehicles  and  ships.  The 
heavenly  seasons,  the  earthly  emanations,  the  virtues  of  matter,  the 
skill  of  the  workman,  must  all  be  combined  to  form  good  work."  l 

Then  come  minute  rules  for  constructing  chariots,  accord- 
ing to  a  prescribed  pattern,  with  symbolic  signifi-  Artrules 
cations  for  every  part,  based  on  universal  relations  ; 
the  body  of  the  car  being  earth,  its  dais  heaven,  its  rayed 
wheels  the  sun  and  moon,  and  so  on.2  Then  the  art  of 
combining  colors  after  rules  drawn  from  supposed  relations 
between  them  and  the  elements.3  We  have  prescriptions 
for  making  armor,  drums,  bells,  tablets,  goblets  ;  for  cast- 
ing and  mixing  metals,  alloying,  dyeing,  pottery,  silk-making, 
painting  feathers  ;  *  for  laying  out  a  city,  for  surveying 
with  the  gnomon,  and  the  use  of  the  plumb-line.5  The 
exact  proportions  of  parts  in  all  manufactured  articles,  and 
minute  adaptation  of  each  to  its  function,  are  here  ordained. 
Fifty-two  pages  of  text  and  comment 6  are  given  to  the 
construction  of  bows,  in  special  adjustment  to  the  body, 
the  blood,  the  will,  and  the  judgment  of  the  user.7  Almost 
equal  care  is  expended  on  the  proportions  of  cart-wheels. 
We  should  suppose  that  all  this  formalism  must  be  intended 

1  Tckeou-li,  B.  XL.  Plutarch  tells  us  that  Numa  distributed  the  laboring  class  in  ancient 
Rome  into  companies,  according  to  their  arts  or  trades,  and  gave  to  each  halls,  courts,  and  rites 
of  its  own. 

1    B.  XL.  *   B.  XLH.  *    B.  XLI.  *  B.  XLm.-XLIV. 

«  Biot's  Translation.  7  B.  XLiv. 

22 


338  STRUCTURES. 

only  for  the  court  artisans,  did  not  the  old  commentator  of 
Confucius  x  tell  us  directly  from  his  master  that  in  his  day 
all  over  the  Empire  carriages  had  wheels  of  the  same  size. 

We  may  safely  leave  this  analysis  to  tell  its  own  story  of 
signm-  the  sources  whence  the  Tcheou-li  Institutes  are  de- 
oTThe  rived.  While  conveying  an  admirable  picture  of  the 
Tcheou-ii.  genius  of  the  Chinese,  and  embodying  a  vast  num- 
ber of  their  actual  or  historical  institutions,  the  mechanism 
is  too  artificial  and  complex  ever  to  have  been  imposed  on 
a  mass  of  living  and  laboring  people,  and  quite  as  unlikely 
to  have  actually  grown  up  out  of  their  spontaneous  self- 
culture.  How  it  was  transmitted,  how  it  obtained  credence, 
we  cannot  now  determine  :  even  Chinese  lore  cannot  trace 
it  beyond  the  age  of  the  Han.  But  its  existence  and  repute 
are  proofs  that,  substantially,  it  represents  the  traditional 
faith  and  form  of  the  Chinese  State.  And  nothing  can  hide 
its  transcendent  testimony  to  the  refinement  and  breadth 
of  this  antique  civilization,  the  fulness  of  its  development 
in  labors  and  arts,  and  its  aspiration  to  bring  the  order  and 
harmony  of  cosmical  movement  into  the  social  and  indus- 
trial spheres. 


While  the  Shu-king  and  Tcheou-li  describe  a  thoroughly 
RELA-  organized  imperialism  at  the  outset  of  Chinese 
history,  directing  subject  States  by  an  elaborate 
supervision,  and  dividing  land  and  people  by  mathe- 
matical  ratios  and  geometrical  lines,  —  the  stronger 
probability  is  that  these  structures  are,  at  least  in  much  of 
their  detail,  and  even  in  their  general  plan,  ideals  of  gov- 
ernment arising  out  of  a  mixture  of  history,  tradition,  and 
fact  in  later  times,  and  teaching  what  ought  to  be,  more 
than  what  had  been. 

1  Chvng-yung,  ch.  xxviii. 


GOVERNMENT.  339 

There  is,  however,  no  reason  for  rejecting  the  whole  of 
Chinese  tradition,  and  the  recorded  lines  of  rulers.   Early 
These  point   to    some  kind   of    central   authority  union  im- 

.  .  1-1  •  perfect. 

dating  from  very  ancient  times,  to  which  associated 
tribes  paid  an  imperfect  allegiance  maintained  by  royal  tours 
and  feudal  tributes,  and  which  was  really  combined  with 
many  of  those  germs  of  democracy  apparent  in  the  Shu-king 
and  the  Tcheou-li. l  How  imperfect  the  allegiance  of  the 
chiefs  must  have  been,  appears  by  their  warlike  record,  both 
in  the  Shu  narratives  and  the  Shi  songs,2  and  still  more 
clearly  in  the  extent  of  their  independence  at  the  moment 
of  their  emergence  into  the  light  of  positive  history.  This 
occurs  in  the  "  Spring  and  Autumn  "  Classic  of  Confucius, 
opening  with  the  eighth  century,  B.C.  He  describes  the 
state  of  national  disintegration  as  being  such  that  nothing, 
in  his  judgment,  could  remedy  it  but  a  return  to  the  old 
and  lost  institutions  of  Yao  and  Shun.  This  was  but  the 
natural  advance  —  still  more  striking  two  centuries  later, 
as  we  see  in  Mencius —  of  the  self-destructive  forces  in- 
volved in  that  feudalism  which  succeeded  the  loose  cen- 
tralization of  chieftaincies  in  early  times.  The  real  unity 
of  the  State  came  later,  out  of  the  solution  of  these  forces, 
little  more  than  a  generation  after  Mencius,  by  the  victory 
of  T'sin  over  its  competitors,  —  the  turning-point  of  Chi- 
nese history,  —  250  B.C. 

The  evidences  of  this  gradual  process  seem  clear.  It  began 
in  the  relations  of  simple  patriarchal  tribes,  whose  Deve]o 
natural   tendency  was    to   expand   the    family  idea  ment  of 
to  larger  and  larger  unities,  and  whose  more  or  less 
feudalized  condition  appears  in  the  Shu-king  tributes  and 
wars.3     The  princes  were  hereditary  rulers  at  the  opening 
of  the  Tcheoti,  a  fact  which  is  hardly  consistent  with  a 
previous  compact  monarchy  proceeding  from  the  popular 

1  See  also  the  Li-ki  ;  and  the  Chung-yung,  XX.  14. 

J  Chuhi  fully  admits  this  in  his  comments  on  the  Shi-king  Preface. 

8  See  the  Yu-kung  Chap,  of  the  Shu-king  (Pt.  II.  B.  i.). 


.   34°  STRUCTURES. 

will,  but  would  be  perfectly  natural  to  the  semi-isolated 
tribes  of  the  steppes.  Under  the  Tcheou  these  princes, 
while  paying  tribute  with  heads  bowed  to  the  earth,  and 
regulated  by  six  royal  guardians  (Kung  and  Kow),  still 
exhort  the  monarch,  like  the  old  Spanish  Cortes,  to  be 
reverent  and  maintain  the  ancient  laws.1  To  reduce  their 
rebellion  required  no  less  powerful  a  hand  than  that  of  the 
"Great  Duke."  If  the  monarchy  was  of  such  dimen- 
sions as  to  be  able  to  distribute  kingdoms  by  the  hundred, 
as  asserted  in  the  Shu-king,  where  Woo  is  said  to  have 
given  eight  hundred,  and  in  Matouanlin  who  puts  the  num- 
ber of  fiefs  in  the  Tcheou  at  seventeen  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-three,2 it  is  strange  they  should  have  dwindled  in  the 
Tchun-tsieu  age  to  less  than  two  hundred,  and  in  that  of 
Mencius  to  less  than  ten.  Doubtless  during  the  long  thou- 
sand years  of  the  Tcheou' period,  there  was  space  for  almost 
any  amount  of  change  ;  but  the  figure  of  a  central  imperial- 
ism is  very  dim  amidst  this  incessant  movement  of  dissolv- 
ing views,  that  afford  the  eye  no  point  of  rest.  Says  the 
Chinese  proverb  :  "  As  mountains  become  valleys  and  val- 
leys heights,  so  with  rulers  from  of  old." 3 

As  in  the  outset  we  have  independent  tribes,  so  from  the 
eighth  to  the  fourth  century,  B.C.,  we  find  a  few  powerfully 
organized  States,  under  their  own  monarchs,  paying  slight 
regard  to  the  central  power.  Whether  this  long  process 
involved  the  falling  to  pieces  of  a  vast  empire,  like  that  of 
Charlemagne,  into  local  chieftaincies,  and  then  the  absorp- 
tion of  these  into  a  few  great  States,  is  a  question  we  have 
no  adequate  data  for  solving,  even  in  Chinese  records. 
But  the  improbabilities  of  the  theory  are  great. 

From  Li-wang  (842  B.C.)  to  Chi-hwang-ti  (248  B.C.)  is 
Fail  of  at  all  events  the  period  of  the  Fall  of  Feudalism. 
Feudalism.  « -phc  rude  tribes  of  the  east  and  north  have  their 

1  Shu-king,  Pt.  V.  B.  XXIH.  *  See  also  Plath,  ^er/ass.,  S>c.,  Bay,  Ak.  X.  501. 

3  Plath,  Ibid.,  561. 


GOVERNMENT.  34! 

princes,"  says  Confucius,  "  and  are  not  like  the  States  of 
our  great  land,  which  are  without  them."  1  "  In  the  Tchun- 
tsieu,"  says  Mencius,  "  there  were  no  righteous  wars."  2  The 
miseries  of  the  people  from  famine,  homelessness,  and  cold, 
from  military  raids  and  forced  labors,  are  vividly  painted  by 
this  greatest  of  Chinese  prophets,  born  in  the  darkest  time 
of  his  country's  history,  to  denounce  the  rulers  who  "  led  on 
beasts  to  devour  men."  3  "  Their  perils  they  count  safety, 
their  calamities  profitable,  and  they  have  pleasure  in  the 
things  by  which  they  perish.  If  it  were  possible  to  reason 
with  men  so  inhuman,  how  could  we  have  such  destruction 
of  kingdoms  and  ruin  of  families  ? "  4  The  wars  that  deso- 
lated the  States  are  ascribed  to  the  vices  of  princes,  to 
quarrels  about  succession  arising  from  the  constant  inter- 
ference of  polygamy  with  the  laws  of  inheritance,  and  to 
incessant  revolutions,  often  bloody,  in  the  ruling  families, 
from  the  same  or  kindred  causes.  Plath,  who  believes  in 
the  great  primitive  monarchy,  ascribes  the  fall  of  the 
Tcheou  to  its  habit  of  freely  scattering  its  domains  upon 
chiefs  and  officials,  who  gradually  reduced  it  to  insignifi- 
cance.5 But  we  must  remember  that  the  greater  States, 
like  T'sin  and  T'soo,  were  in  fact  formed  mainly  out  of  the 
border  lands,  where  independent  chiefs  could  readily  build 
up  little  empires  ;  and  that  the  expansion  of  Chinese  civi- 
lization through  regions  to  the  West  and  North  involved 
a  political  weakening  at  its  earlier  centre,  that  would  need 
no  aid  from  the  self-spoliating  habits  ascribed  to  the  line  of 
Tcheou. 

Before  Mencius's  time  the  imperial  visitations  had  ceased, 
and  vassal  princes  had  grown  into  nearly,  if  not  quite,  co- 
equal powers  with  the  sovereign.  Mencius  seems  scarcely 
to  recognize  any  actual  difference.6  Seven  kingdoms  were 
engaged  in  constant  warfare  within  the  limits  of  China, 

1  Lunyu,  III.  5.  *  Mencius,  VII.  ii.  2.         3  Ibid.,  I.  i.  4. 

*  Ibid.,  IV.  i.  8.  8  Plath,  543.  8  Mencius,  I.  i.  3,  5,  7;  I.  ii.  4. 


342  STRUCTURES. 

each  having  its  border  barriers,  where  customs  were  levied 
arid  travellers  stopped.  Gradually  certain  of  these  princes 
had  become  independent  sovereigns,  under  the  name  of 
Pa.  They  were  chosen  by  lesser  chiefs  to  rule  in  place  of 
The  feudal  tne  Emperor ;  assumed  such  imperial  rights  as  ap- 
chiefs  (/»«).  pointing  tribunals,  constructing  calendars,  drawing 
up  systems  of  law.  So  completely  had  the  old  monarchy 
lost  prestige  that  they  took  the  names  of  Emperors  of  the 
East  and  West,  titles  which  Confucius  had  refused  them, 
calling  them  simply  dukes.  They  often  assembled  the 
chieftains  for  consultation  in  these  unsettled  times,  and 
caused  them  to  swear  peace  and  alliance  ;  usually  declar- 
ing, perhaps  for  form's  sake,  —  perhaps  in  the  hope  of 
calming  the  excesses  of  revolution,  —  their  common  allegi- 
ance to  the  Emperor.  Some  were  barbarous,  like  Mu,  who 
adopted  the  custom  of  burying  men  alive  at  funerals,  from 
the  savage  tribes  included  in  his  princedom  of  T'sin ;  others 
had  a  constructive  spirit  of  the  highest  order,  like  Hwan- 
kung  of  Tsi,  who  set  himself  against  the  main  sources  of 
this  social  dissolution. 

"  Of  the  five  Pa  the  most  powerful  was  Duke  Hwan.  At  the 
assembly  of  the  princes  in  Kwei-k'ew,  he  bound  the  victim 
and  placed  the  writing  upon  it,  but  did  not  smear  their 
mouths  with  blood.  The  first  injunction  in  their  agreement 
was  :  '  Slay  the  unfilial ;  change  not  the  son  who  has  been  appointed 
heir  ;  exalt  not  a  concubine  to  the  place  of  wife.'  The  second  was  : 
'  Honor  the  worthy,  maintain  the  capable.'  The  third  was  :  '  Respect 
the  old  and  be  kind  to  the  young.  Be  not  forgetful  of  strangers  and 
travellers.'  The  fourth  was  :  '  Let  not  offices  be  hereditary,  nor  offi- 
cers be  pluralists.  Select  fit  men  for  office.  Let  not  a  prince  put  to 
death  a  great  officer  on  his  own  authority  alone.'  The  fifth  was  :  *  Do 
not  make  embankments  to  the  injury  of  adjoining  States  ;  place  no 
restrictions  on  the  sale  of  grain  ;  make  no  feudal  investiture  without 
notifying  the  chief  of  the  confederation.'  All  then  united  in  a  league 
of  amity."  1 

1  Meticius,  VI.  ii.  7  ;  see  also  Lurtyu,  xiv.  18. 


GOVERNMENT.  343 

i 

This  enlightened  movement  took  place  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  seventh  century  B.C.1  Mencius  adds,  sadly  :  — 

"The  princes  of  the  present  day  all  violate  these  five  prohibitions, 
therefore  I  say  that  they  are  sinners  against  the  five  Pa." 

"  Although  a  prince  should  have  the  empire  given  him,  and  yet  pur- 
sue the  paths  of  the  present  day,  and  not  change  its  practices,  he  could 
not  retain  it  for  a  single  morning."  2 

It  redeems  those  barbarous  epochs  from  entire  condem- 
nation to  find  the  record  of  such  counsels  as  these  of  a 
leader  in  the  State  of  Lu  :  — 

"  It  is  not  good,  when  a  man  of  Pi  is  seen,  to  freeze  him,  but  rather 
to  clothe  him  ;  if  he  is  hungry,  to  feed  him.  Be  to  him  a  noble  master, 
care  for  him  in  want  and  fatigue.  Then  Pi  will  come  back  as  if  to  its 
home."8 

A  prince  of  T'sin,  withdrawing  his  army  from  a  siege, 
said  :  — 

"  Faith  is  the  most  precious  treasure  of  a  State  ;  it  is  the  guardian 
of  the  people.  If  I  win  Yuen  and  lose  my  faith,  how  shall  I  protect 

it?"4 

The   Tchun-tsieu,   or   "Spring  and   Autumn"    Classic, 
ascribed  to    Confucius,  purports  to   continue   the 
line  of  history,  from  the  date  at   which  the  Shu-  TCHUN- 
king  record  ends,  to  the  time  of  the  great  teacher  TSIKU- 
himself.     It  gives  the  annals  of  his  native  State  (Loo)  and 
its  relations  with  its  neighbors,  during  that  period  of  ex- 
treme anarchy  which  elapsed  between  722  and  480  B.C.,  and 
has  always  held  very  high,  though  not  undisputed,  reputa- 
tion as  an  authentic  history.6     Though  confessedly  written 
in  view  of  the  degeneracy  of  the  times,  and  for  the  purpose 
of  reviving  the  national  unity,  no  such  design  is  apparent 
to  us  in  its  meagre  outlines,  which  are  utterly  without  hint 
of  philosophical  connection,  or  of  any  other  principle  of 

1  Biot,  Journ.  Asia*.,  November,  1845.  8  Mencius,  VI.  ii.  7,  9. 

8  Plath,  p.  553.  «  Plath,  Bay.  Ak.  1873. 

8  Translated  in  Dr.  Legge's  Chinese  Classics. 


344  STRUCTURES. 

construction  whatever,  beyond  that  which  the  name  of  the 
work  conveys,  of  making  a  calendar  of  events  according  to 
times  and  seasons.  The  native  commentaries,  however,  — 
the  principal  among  which,  the  Tso-chuen,  made  very  soon 
after  the  appearance  of  the  text,  is  a  valuable  historical 
record,1 — make  both  its  silence  and  its  speech  significant 
of  much  that  a  foreigner  would  not  discover  ;  and  doubtless, 
if  we  may  judge  by  analogy  from  commentaries  on  other 
venerated  texts  nearer  home,  of  much  that  only  the  eye  of 
a  worshipper  could  discern.  But  whatever  its  purpose,  its 
general  acceptance  for  ages  as  edifying  in  the  highest  degree, 
as  well  as  its  manifest  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  its  times, 
give  great  value  to  its  decided  affirmation  of  the  persist- 
ence of  the  ethico-political  idea  we  have  been  tracing,  even 
amidst  the  terrible  demoralization  of  these  intestine  wars, 
not  one  of  which,  according  to  Mencius,  was  just 

Its  records  consist  of  things  commonplace  and  things 
marvellous  ;  relating  to  the  weather  and  to  the  signs  of 
events,  famines,  locusts,  eclipses,  rebellions,  invasions,  in- 
cessant wars,  private  feuds,  and  crimes  by  both  sexes  ; 
conspiracies,  conferences  of  princes,  combinations  of  States, 
marriages  and  divorces,  — multitudes  of  petty  details  which 
have  not  even  the  merit  of  variety.  Yet  it  is  easy  to  select 
illustrations  of  the  principles  to  which  we  have  referred,  in 
no  sense  at  variance  with  the  spirit  of  the  whole. 

"  The  strength  of  the  kingdom  depends  on  the  virtue  of  the  sover- 
eign, not  on  the  tripods.  Heaven  blesses  the  goodness  of  the  wise  : 
'tis  there  its  favor  rests."  2 

"  The  ruler  is  the  host  of  spirits  and  the  hope  of  the  people.  If  he 
straitens  the  people,  and  causes  the  Invisible  Ones  to  lack  the  sacri- 
fices, of  what  use  is  he  ?  What  should  they  do  but  send  him  away  ?  "  8 

u  Heaven's  love  for  the  people  is  very  great.  Would  it  allow  the 
one  man  to  take  his  will  and  way  over  them,  indulging  his  passions 
and  disregarding  heaven  and  earth  ?  "  4 

1  See  Legge's  Prolegomena.  *  Tchun-tsieu,Vll.  3. 

s  Tso-chuen  on  Ibid.,  IX.  15.  *  Ibid 


GOVERNMENT.  345 

A  well-managed  State  is  described  as  one  in  which  pun- 
ishment is  justified  as  the  suppression  of  rebellion,  and 
virtue  shown  in  gentle  treatment  of  those  who  submit ;  in 
which  the  calling  out  of  forces  does  not  interfere  with 
labor,  and  the  army  is  ready  for  any  emergency  without 
special  orders  ;  where  office  depends  on  fitness,  and  rewards 
are  conferred  according  to  service,  and  special  kindness  is 
shown  the  old  ;  where  strangers  receive  privileges  and 
exemptions  ;  where  officials  are  distinguished  by  their 
dress,  and  each  person  comports  himself  with  the  position 
he  holds  in  rank  or  class  : 1  — 

"  The  defeat  or  death  of  a  good  minister  is  like  an  eclipse.  He  is 
the  bulwark  of  the  altars.  To  slay  him  is  to  give  victory  to  the  nation's 
foes."  2 

"  Superior  men  should  labor  with  their  minds  ;  smaller  ones  with 
their  strength."  8 

"  When  an  army  has  right  on  its  side  it  is  strong :  when  the  expe- 
dition is  wrong  it  is  weary  and  weak."4 

Tsze  Muh  said  :  "  If  we  get  our  will,  what  use  is  good  faith  ?  "  To 
which  the  Chief  Minister  replied:  "How  can  one's  will  be  got  by 
casting  away  one's  honesty  ?  It  is  by  good  faith  that  the  purpose  of 
the  mind  itself  becomes  realized."6 

Here  is  another  effort  by  a  covenant  of  princes  to  heal 
the  evils  of  the  time  :  — 

"  All  we  who  covenant  agree  not  to  hoard  the  produce  of  good 
years,  not  to  shut  each  other  out  of  advantages,  not  to  protect  traitors, 
not  to  shelter  criminals.  We  agree  to  aid  each  other  in  disasters,  to 
cherish  the  same  likes  and  dislikes,  to  support  and  encourage  the 
Royal  House.  Should  any  prince  break  these  agreements,  may  He 
who  watches  over  men's  sincerity,  the  spirits  of  the  land,  our  prede- 
cessors, the  ancestors  of  the  twelve  States,  destroy  him,  so  that  he 
shall  lose  his  people,  his  family  perish,  and  his  State  be  utterly  over- 
thrown." 6 

"  A  struggle  is  not  to  be  maintained  by  whitening  the  plains  with 
bones  to  gratify  our  pride."  7 

i  Tchun-tsieu,  VII.  12.  s  Ibid.  s  Tso-chuen,  to  IX.  9.  *  Ibid.,  VII.  12. 

5  Tchun-tsieu,  IX.  27.  «  Ibid.,    IX.  n.  »  Ibid.,   9. 


34-6  STRUCTURES. 

To  an  officer  who  wished  to  lead  an  army  against  Tsin, 
the  Earl  of  T'sin  said  :  "  Its  ruler  is  evil,  but  of  what  have 
the  people  been  guilty  ?  "  i 

Another  chief  in  T'sin  advised  sending  grain  to  the 
enemy  in  their  distress,  saying  :  — 

"  To  succor  in  calamity,  and  take  pity  on  one's  neighbors,  is  right  ; 
and  he  who  does  so  has  the  blessing."  2 

Tsin  was  ungrateful  and  made  war,  but  was  defeated. 
T'sin  treated  it  with  kindness  and  sent  it  supplies,  and  the 
Earl  said  :  — 

"  I  am  angry  with  its  ruler,  but  I  pity  its  people.  How  can  I  ex- 
pect to  annex  Tsin  ?  Let  me  meanwhile  plant  my  virtue  more  deeply, 
and  wait  for  a  good  ruler  to  arise  there."  3 

The  Marquis  of  Tse,  invading  Loo,  said  to  Chen-He  :  — 

"The  houses  of  your  people  are  empty,  there  is  no  grass  in  their 
fields.  On  what  do  they  rely  that  they  are  not  afraid  ?  " 

Chen-He  replied  :  — 

"  They  rely  on  the  charge  of  a  former  King  :  *  From  generation  to 
generation  let  your  descendants  refrain  from  harming  one  another.' 
Thus  Duke  Hwan,  assembling  the  States,  took  measures  for  healing 
and  relief  in  conforming  with  this  ancient  charge.  When  your  lord- 
ship took  his  place  all  the  States  were  full  of  hope,  saying  :  *  He  will 
carry  on  the  good  work  of  Hwan.'  Therefore  our  poor  State  did  not 
attempt  to  protect  itself  by  force  of  men,  and  now  we  say :  '  Surely  he 
will  not  forget  that  ancient  charge  of  his  father.'  On  this  we  rely,  and 
are  not  afraid." 

The  Marquis  of  Tse  returned  home.4 

There  was  a  great  drought,  and  the  Duke  of  Loo  wanted 
to  burn  a  witch  and  a  very  emaciated  person.  But  Tsang- 
wan-chung  said  to  him  :  — 

"  That  is  not  what  it  is  needed  in  time  of  drought.  Put  your  walls 
in  repair,  lessen  your  food,  be  frugal  in  expenses,  and  encourage  people 
to  mutual  help.  What  have  the  witch  and  the  lean  man  to  do  with  the 
matter:  ' 

»  Tckun-tsuu,  V.  14.  2  Ibid.,  V.  14.  '  Ib.  1.,  V.  15-  «  Tbic.,  V.  a/. 


GOVERNMENT.  347 

Best  of  all,  the  Duke  followed  the  good  advice. 1 
Confucius  asks, — 

"  How  shall  a  kingdom  be  ruled,  when  there  is  no  distinction,  no 
higher  nor  lower,  among  men  ?  " 

A  strong  sense  of  the  necessity  of  rights  and  duties 
according  to  functions,  and  of  functions  according  to  pow- 
ers, is  apparent  in  such  sentences  as  these  :  — 

"  Equal  queens,  equal  sons,  double  governments  (favorites  made 
equal  with  ministers),  and  equal  cities  (large  city  made  equal  with 
small  one),  —  all  lead  to  disorder."  '2 

"It  is  only  the  perfectly  virtuous  who  can  keep  a  people  in  sub- 
mission by  clemency.  For  the  next  class  severity  is  the  necessary 
way.  To  carry  on  a  mild  government  is  a  difficult  thing."  3 

The  strife  for  hegemony  lasted,  as  in  the  old  Greek  States, 
for  centuries,  —  relieved  by  noble  instances  of  self- 

J  End  of  the 

denial  among  brothers,  of  humanity  and  magnanim-  strife  of 
ity  among  chiefs,  and  darkened  by  unnatural  hates,  States' 
till  the  final  victory  of  T'sin  over  the  six  great  States  which 
had  absorbed  the  rest.  The  great  scale  of  numbers  and  space 
on  which  this  triumph  of  concentrative  force  was  effected 
bears  witness  to  the  national  bias  towards  unity  and  order. 
In  the  quality  of  its  special  elements,  the  growth  of  T'sin  to 
supreme  power  has  been  likened  to  the  rise  of  Prussia,  as 
the  result  of  a  patient  and  persevering  policy  of  invitation  to 
strangers,  choice  of  best  leaders,  and  furtherance  of  talent 
without  regard  to  its  origin,  as  well  as  of  long  disciplines 
by  border  wars  with  the  surrounding  barbarous  tribes.  Yet 
the  record  of  its  barbarities  in  war  is  monstrous,  and,  like 
analogous  ones  in  the  Hebrew  Book  of  Chronicles,  beyond 
belief.4 

T'sin  Chi-hwang-ti  was  a  reformer  "  who  had  learned  to 
despise  old  paths  and  to  subdue  kingdoms,"  says  Chi- 
the  Sse-ki  with  sharpness.     He  was  in  fact  a  dis- 

1   Tso-ch,ien\o  V.  22.  *  Ibid.,  II.  18. 

3  Ibid.,  X.  21.  «  Plath  on  Milit.  Affairs  of  Chinese. 


34-8  STRUCTURES. 

ciple  of  the  Tao-sse  school,  which  despised  history  and  re- 
acted against  the  whole  spirit  of  Chinese  culture.  His 
cruelty,  as  the  censors  of  the  succeeding  Han  dynasty  are 
eager  to  assert,1  caused  a  universal  league  against  him, 
which  perhaps  did  more  than  any  thing  else  towards  estab- 
lishing nationality  on  a  firm  basis,  in  place  of  feudal  dis- 
union.2 

The  changes  introduced  by  this  short  dynasty,  which 
sweeps  like  a  tornado  across  the  track  of  Chinese  history, 
have  been  already  suggested  ;  the  bounds  of  the  empire 
widely  extended  to  the  south  and  west ;  the  people,  freed 
from  a  warlike  aristocracy,  and  their  path  opened  to  all 
public  functions,  as  well  as  to  ownership  in  land  ;  the  edu- 
cational examinations,  only  temporarily  suppressed  by  Chi- 
hwang-ti,  to  reach  much  higher  development  by  means 
of  the  political  institutions  which  he  founded.  The  order 
and  efficiency  thus  secured  by  unity  in  public  adminis- 
tration readily  commended  themselves  to  a  people  so  apt 
for  peaceful  association  as  the  Chinese ;  and  it  is  from  this 
epoch,  which  may  be  said  to  open  with  the  reaction  against 
feudal  disintegration  by  Confucius  and  .his  school,  that  we 
may  date  the  real  history  of  the  Chinese  State. 

Since  the  T'sin  monarchy  there  have  been  many  changes 
Later  in  the  relations  of  the  States  to  the  central  power. 
The  proverbial  stability  of  Chinese  life  is  hardly 
borne  out  by  the  history  of  these  relations.  Besides 
Shun's  distribution  into  twelve  provinces  under  the  Mou, 
and  Yu's  into  nine  natural  and  five  political  divisions,  in 
the  old  ideal  monarchy,  and  then  the  Tcheou  partition  into 
twelve  domains  answering  to  the  zodiacal  signs, —  Chi- 
hwang-ti  is  credited  with  substituting  for  the  old  feudal 
States  thirty-six  Kuen,  or  provinces,  under  guardianship  of 

1  Pfitzmaier,  Wien  A  kad, ,  October  1860,  November,  1861. 

2  The  reader  will  find  resemblances  in  many  of  his  institutions  to  those  introduced  into 
English  feudalism  by  William  the  Norman.     Cf.  Green's  Hist,  of  England. 


GOVERNMENT.  349 

prefects.  In  the  seventh  century,  the  Tang  made  a  new 
division  into  ten  departments  (tao)  with  new  functionaries. 
On  these  followed  a  long  line  of  changes  rung  on  the  titles 
of  offices  combining  civil  and  military  authority,  ending  in 
the  present  viceroys  (ta-fu) 1  of  eighteen  well-organized 
States. 

We  have  seen  (i)  that  the  oldest  tradition  makes  the  Em- 
peror owner  of  the  whole  territory,  distributing  the  LAND  ' 
land  among  the  people,  colonizing  and  organizing  LAWS- 
the  cultivators  according  to  their  need,  so  as  to  secure  as 
equal  a  division  as  possible  of  landed  property  ;  and  Early 
(2)  that  the  nobles  were  supposed  to  have  gradually  history- 
acquired  proprietary  rights,  which  were  held  in  the  time  of 
the  Tcheou  on  terms  of  feudal  service  and  tribute.  The 
historical  fact  is  simply  that,  when  we  find  these  chieftains 
emerging  into  view,  they  have  a  quasi-imperial  tenure  of 
their  territories :  how  long  they  have  had  this  tenure,  or 
whether  it  was  original,  is  not  within  our  knowledge.  The 
old  authors  speak  of  a  process  as  going  on  from  early  times, 
by  which  imperial  officials,  receiving  their  salaries  in  lands 
instead  of  money,  acquired  powers  over  the  people  dwelling 
thereon,  who  were  therefore  called  their  men.'2'  But  the 
Tcheou-li  embodies  what  the  Chinese  for  ages  regarded  as 
the  true  land  legislation  :  the  soil  divided  as  equally  as  pos- 
sible among  cultivators,  who  pay  tithes  according  to  values 
of  harvests  officially  estimated,  with  discrimination  against 
negligent  farming  ;  taxes  lightened  in  hard  times  ;  careful 
registers  kept  of  every  location  ;  minute  supervision  for 
increasing  products,  population,  and  stock  ;  for  fixing  the 
times  of  sowing  and  felling,  and  the  kind  of  seeds  ;  and  for 
protecting  animals  ;  —  with  other  governmental  arrange- 
ments tending  to  the  security,  comfort,  and  local  attach- 

1  Mayers  in  Notes  and  Queries,  III.  No.  8. 

*  Biot,  Mem.  de  la  Constit.  Pol.  de  la  Chine  au  XII.  Siecle,  &v.,  p.  29. 


35O  STRUCTURES. 

ment  of  the  landholders.  To  whatever  extent  this  ideal 
was  disappointed  in  the  constantly  disturbed  and  finally 
Demands  decadent  epoch  of  the  Tcheou,  we  find  Mencius  not 
of  Mencius  only  familiar  with  what  is  best  in  it  as  theory,  but 
y<  boldly  insisting  on  the  broadest  and  most  humane 
political  economy  consistent  with  it,  as  the  right  of  a  suffer- 
ing and  even  starving  people.  Mencius  demands  a  return 
to  "  equal  homesteads  for  all  farmers,  under  their  own 
mulberry  trees,"  for  sericulture,  with  such  freedom  from 
public  labors  (corvee)  as  would  allow  them  time  for  the 
support  of  their  families  ;  imperial  inspection-tours  to  see 
justice  done  ;  fixed  tithes  on  land  free  of  official  caprice  ; 
abolition  of  game  laws  ;  free  trade  and  commercial  inter- 
course between  the  towns  ;  deliverance  from  devastation 
of  the  farms  by  armies  on  the  march  ;  and  from  mockery 
of  the  miseries  of  the  people  by  royal  pleasure  and  hunting 
excursions.1  This  demand  of  Mencius  for  the  removal  of 
custom-houses  was  very  remarkable  in  an  age  so  remote 
from  the  present,  and  in  a  country  so  disunited  as  China 
two  thousand  years  ago.  His  idea  of  equalizing  property 
in  land  was  not  so  irrational  as  it  would  be  in  the  political 
economist  of  our  day ;  since  it  was  based  on  imperial  au- 
thority to  construct  social  relations,  and  was  the  only  pro- 
test left  possible  in  the  dreadful  miseries  which  he  depicts 
with  so  much  sympathy.  He  earnestly  advocates  the  old 
village  system  of  "  mutual  aid,"  through  common  labor  on  a 
central  public  field  by  every  eight  families  ;  as  well  as 
through  friendly  offices  between  these  members  of  a  single 
agricultural  section  or  square.  This  would  enable  the  la- 
borers to  pay  their  dues  to  government,  as  well  as  cause 
them  to  put  the  general  good  before  private  interest  (since 
the  public  work  must  take  precedence),  and  to  live  in  har- 
mony and  comfort.  He  contrasts  this  with  the  taxing  of 
each  person  according  to  a  fixed  rate,  which  bore  hard  in  bad 

1  Menc.  B.  i.  i.  3  ;  ii.  i,  5 ;  B.  n.  i.  5. 


GOVERNMENT.  351 

years.  "  When  the  parent  of  the  people  causes  them,  after 
a  year's  toil,  to  be  unable  to  support  their  parents,  so  that 
they  proceed  to  borrow,  till  the  old  people  and  children  are 
found  lying  in  the  ditches,  where  is  his  parental  relation  ? "  1 
The  T'sin  dynasty  neglected  land  regulation  for 

Effect  of 

extensive  public  works  and  military  enterprises,  the  T'sin 
which  bore  harder  on  the  persons  of  the  farmers  Laws- 
than  on  their  situation  as  tax-payers.  It  was  probably  due 
to  this  looseness  of  land  administration  that  private  prop- 
erty in  land  began  to  be  recognized  and  developed,  in  place 
of  absolute  ownership  by  kings  and  nobles.  Thus  land  be- 
came heritable  in  the  fullest  sense ;  and  so  great  was  the 
revolution  that  ineffectual  efforts  were  afterwards  made  to 
overthrow  it  in  the  name  of  imperial  ownership  itself.2 
This  change  had  in  fact  already  commenced  in  the  king- 
dom of  T'sin  in  349  B.C.,  before  its  accession  to  the  empire, 
and  was  simply  expanded  by  Chi-hwang-ti  into  national 
dimensions.3 

The  property  rights  of  an  industrial  people  are  sure  to 
assert  themselves  fully  at  last  through  its  production  of 
values  that  must  be  recognized  as  at  the  foundation  of  pub- 
lic good.  The  evil  that  lurks  as  a  kind  of  irony,  in  every 
forward  step  of  society,  showed  itself  in  the  development  of 
private  servitudes  out  of  the  vast  public  works  set  on  foot 
by  Chi-hwang-ti,  which  drove  multitudes  to  dependence  on 
richer  persons.4  So  that  slavery  and  the  free  tenure  of 
land  grew  up,  as  afterwards  in  America,  under  the  same 
political  institutions,  and  at  the  same  epoch.  But  the  free 
methods  of  such  a  people  bear  larger  and  more  lasting  fruit 
than  its  oppressive  ones.  It  was  otherwise  in  the  indolent 
life  of  the  Roman  upper  classes  whose  estates,  held  in  per- 
petuity and  cultivated  by  slaves,  were  the  germ  of  social 
dissolution. 

1  Mendus,  B.  in.  i.  3.  »  Wuttke,  II.  156. 

8  Matouanlin.  *  Biot,  Jonrn,  Asiat.>  1838. 


352  STRUCTURES. 

At  present,  in  the  tea  districts  of  China,  the  farms  are 
Present      four  or  five  acres  in  extent,  and  every  cottager  sup- 
plies his  wants,  after  the  Mencian  ideal,  from  the 


ures  in 


china.  produce  of  his  tea  garden.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  cotton,  silk,  and  rice  farms.  "  Labor  is  a  pleasure  there, 
for  its  fruits  are  eaten  by  themselves,  and  the  rod  of  the 
oppressor  is  unfelt  and  unknown." l  The  multitude  of 
these  small  holders  is  like  "  a  swarm  of  bees."  "  No  feudal- 
ities or  servitudes  have  burdened  the  land  for  centuries." 
The  cultivator  reaps  the  benefit  of  his  own  improvements, 
the  government  only  taking  its  tax.  For  neglect  of  culti- 
vation both  the  cultivator  and  the  head-man  of  the  district 
are  responsible.2  Second  mortgages  are  forbidden,  tres- 
passes and  frauds  in  relation  to  farm  property  are  severely 
punished.3  Officials  are  not  allowed  to  own  lands  in  their 
jurisdictions,  but  returning  emigrants  are  assigned  unoccu- 
pied tracts  in  return  for  their  cultivation  and  payment  of 
taxes.4  And  all  this  in  China,  while  England  is  still  largely 
under  feudal  tenures,  and  the  condition  of  the  agricultural 
population  throughout  most  of  the  rural  districts  is  to  be 
learned  from  reports  of  an  Agricultural  Commission  in 
1868-69,  of  which  the  "Fortnightly  Review"  says:5  "A 
more  piteous  array  of  powerless  poverty,  a  blacker  catalogue 
of  national  blunders,  national  disgrace,  and  national  crime, 
has  probably  never  been  produced  by  any  civilized  gov- 
ernment." 6 


The  Chinese  believe  that  legislative  sanctions  were  fully 

OLD  PENAL  established  from  the  beginning  of  the  State.     Yu 

had  said :  "  Control  the  people  with  gentle  words, 


1  Fortune's  Wanderings,  1847  »  PP-  I9°>  I9I« 

2  Penal  Code  of  CAina,  xcvii. 

8  Ibid.,  xciii.,  xcv.,  xcviii.  *  Ibid.,  xciv.,  xcvi.  B  July,  1874. 

6  See  also  Kay's  Social  Condition  of  the  People  of  England. 


GOVERNMENT.  353 

but  correct  them  with  the  majesty  of  law."1  "The  Five 
Punishments"  are  placed  by  the  Hia  under  direc-  Theirethi- 
tion  of  a  Minister  of  Crimes,2  and  a  special  domain  cal  tone- 
reaching  to  the  wild  tribes  is  set  apart  for  penal  restraints. 
The  five  punishments  were  cruel,  but  Shun  appointed  fixed 
commutations,  saying  that  "  compassion  ought  to  rule  in 
punishing." ;  From  the  first,  penalty  is  referred  to  its 
higher  ethical  grounds.  "  Only  virtue  conquers  vice."  4 
Moral  suasion  is  preached,  if  not  practised.  "  Let  rewards, 
not  penalties,  be  heritable."  "  Risk  error,  sooner  than 
punish  the  innocent."6 

Obedience  from  love,  not  law  nor  fear,  is  made  the  germ 
of  social  order.  The  Sse-ki  says  :  "  Fo-hi  and  Shin-nung 
taught,  but  did  not  punish.  Hwang-ti,  Yao,  and  Shun 
punished,  but  without  anger."  The  Shu-king  explains  that 
robberies  compelled  the  use  of  penal  laws  in  the  Hia  age, 
and  that  the  barbarism  of  the  Meaou,  confounding  good 
and  evil,  was  met  by  the  virtuous  edicts  of  Shun. 

No  better  philosophy  of  penalty  has  ever  been  reached 
than  that  contained  in  the  old  Shu-king  maxims,   Ideaof 
some   of   which    have  already  been  quoted :    that  punish- 
"  the  end  of  punishment  is  to  promote  virtue  ; " 
"to  make  an  end  of  punishing;"  to  bring  "blessing"  by 
the  just  appreciation  of  guilt ;   that  "  only  good  persons 
should  be  judges,   because  penalties  may  bring  extreme 
distress  ;  "  that  "  evil  should  be  dealt  with  as  if  it  were  a 
disease  in  one's  own  person  ;  "  that  "  none  should  be  pun- 
ished whose  guilt  is  in  doubt." 

We  may  add  from  the  Li-ki :  — 

' "  Seek  out  the  good  side  and  pardon  ;  change  criminality  by  hu- 
manity. For  a  deadly  crime,  the  great  thing  is  to  convert  the  criminal 
to  goodness."6  - 

"  The  good  judge  will  study  each  case  thoroughly.     If  it  is  doubt- 

1  Shu-king,  Pt.  II.  B.II.  »  Ibid,  B.  i.  »  Ibid.,  B.  i.  10. 

*  Ibid.,  B.  ii.  20.  «  Ibid.,  B.  11.  12.  •  Sect.  Ta-tai.    See  Plath,  p.  735. 

23 


354  STRUCTURES. 

fill,  he  will  make  it  known  to  a  number  of  persons  ;  and  if  they  are 
also  in  doubt,  he  pardons."  l 

"  In  trying  cases,  let  not  the  judge  look  to  his  own  profit ;  treasures 
so  won  are  no  treasures,  but  a  heap  of  sins  that  bring  penalty."  l 

"  Penalties  will  be  used  with  great  caution  by  the  wise ;  because 
they  cannot  be  retracted  or  undone."  l 

Confucius  and  Mencius  ascribe  vice  to  bad  conditions, 
such  as  want  of  certain  livelihood,  or  occupation,  not  to  evil 
intent.  The  remedy  with  both  is  "benevolent  government." 

"  To  involve  the  people  in  crime  through  vicious  conditions,  and 
then  follow  them  up  with  punishment,  is  to  entrap  the  people."2 
"  Therefore,  a  good  ruler  will  observe  regulated  limits  in  his  dealing 
with  wrong." 

This  wonderful  theoretic  wisdom  of  the  Chinese  is  offset 
its  contra-  by  the  prevalence,  in  these  elder  days,  of  some  very 
diction  in  barbarous  forms  of  punishment,  which  seem  to 
show  that  their  higher  tendencies  had  to  struggle 
against  many  elements  inherited  from  the  Mongol  and  the 
steppe.  A  large  portion  of  these  were,  however,  enacted 
by  tyrants,  and  so  were  transient  ;  such  as  embracing  a 
burning  pillar,  or  being  torn  in  pieces  between  chariots. 
While  mutilation,  at  times  very  common,  seems  to  have 
been,  as  with  other  Oriental  races, 8  a  permanent  part  of 
criminal  justice,  we  do  not  find  torture  or  ordeal  applied  to 
elicit  truth  from  witnesses  or  the  accused,  who  are  tested 
by  observation  of  signs  in  their  bearing  and  features.  The 
employment  of  mutilated  criminals  in  public  labors  stands 
side  by  side  in  the  Tcheou-li  with  the  less  creditable  exclu- 
sion of  released  prisoners  for  three  years  from  the  recog- 
nized population  of  the  State.4  The  destruction  of  the 
whole  family  of  a  parricide,  and  adherence  of  penalty  to  the 
descendants  of  the  offender,  were  incidents  to  rude  stages 
of  a  patriarchal  religion.  Mencius  tells  us  that  Wen-wang 

i  Li-ki,  ch.  5.  *  Menc.,  III.  i.  3. 

8  Lenormant,  Anc.  Hist,  of  East,  II.  pp.  106,  109.  *  Tcheou-li,  B.  xxx.  vii. 


GOVERNMENT.  355 

refused  to  permit  that  the  wives  and  children  of  criminals 
should  be  involved  m  the  penalty  of  their  guilt.1  Finally, 
it  must  be  observed  that  great  care  seems  to  have  been 
expended  on  discriminating  degrees  of  guilt,  separating 
involuntary  from  intentional  wrong,  and  taking  counsel,  in 
all  important  cases,  of  every  class  of  witnesses,  besides 
guarding  the  right  of  appeal. 

The  actual  Penal  Code  of  China  (Ta-tsing-leuh-le),  ot 
which  we  have  a  very  careful  abstract  by  Sir  George  THHPE_ 
Staunton,2  aided  by  an  authoritative  exposition  from  NAL  CODE 
the  Emperor  Yang-ching,  is  of  the  highest  value  OFC"INA- 
as  embodying  the  results  of  the  old  national  ideals  we  have 
been  reviewing,  as  well  as  such  practical  institutions  as  have 
proved  best  suited  to  the  character  of  the  race.  We  find 
in  it  most  of  the  substance  of  the  Shu-king  and  Tcheou-li ; 
and,  while  enlarged  by  constant  additions  during  the  last 
two  centuries,  its  thorough  revisal  every  five  years  has 
brought  it  to  a  very  compact  and  simple  form,  which  may 
well  be  regarded  as  a  model  for  codes  intended  to  be  read 
and  understood  by  the  people. 

It  embraces  seven  divisions :    (i)    General   Laws ;    (2) 
Civil  Laws  ;  (3)  Fiscal,  including  laws  relating  to  Its  con. 
Land  and  Marriage,  Public  Property,  Customs,  Pri-  tents- 
vate  Property,  Sales,  and  Markets  ;  (4)  Ritual  ;  (5)  Mili- 
tary ;  (6)  Criminal,  divided  under  the  heads  of  Robbery, 
Homicide,    Quarrelling,     Indictments,    and     Information, 
Bribery,  Fraud,   Incest,   Arrest,   Imprisonment,   Trial,  and 
Punishment  ;  (7)  Public  Works. 

Kang-hi's  definition  of  the  objects  of  punishment,  pre- 
fixed to  the  translation,  is  in  the  spirit  of  the  old  ideals. 

"  Punishment  is  instituted  to  guard  against  violence  and  injury,  to 
repress  inordinate  desires,  and  secure  the  tranquillity  of  an  honest  and 
well-conducting  community." 

1  Menc.,  I.  ii.  5.  »  Published  in  1810. 


356  STRUCTURES. 

The  Code  abounds  in  applications  of  justice  and  be- 
lts Be-  nignity.  The  progress  of  humanity  is  recon- 
nigmties.  ciled  ^^  ^t  Oriental  reverence  for  what  is 
written,  which  forbids  expunging  obsolete  law  from  the 
statute-book,  by  the  device  of  a  distinction  between 
nominal  and  actual  punishments.  Tables  of  pecuniary 
commutation  are  also  drawn  up,  the  amounts  being  pro- 
portioned to  rank  and  position.  Of  humanities  relat- 
Astothe  *ng  to  tne  Family,  where  we  should  expect  the 
Family.  most  rigid  rules,  we  may  mention  (i),  concern- 
ing Women :  mitigation  of  corporeal  punishment  by 
permission  to  wear  a  garment  during  its  infliction  (xx.), 
and  by  exemption  from  it  for  a  hundred  days  after  child- 
birth (ccccxx.)  ;  commutation  of  banishment  by  fine  (xxi.), 
and  permission  to  follow  husbands  into  exile  (xv.)  ;  bail  in 
place  of  imprisonment,  for  all  crimes  except  the  highest 
(ccccxx.)  ;  limitation  of  the  right  of  a  husband  to  divorce  his 
wife,  even  on  any  of  the  seven  legal  grounds,  when  she  has 
mourned  for  her  parents-in-law  for  the  appointed  period,  or 
when  the  family  has  become  rich  during  the  marriage  by 
her  aid,  or  when  she  has  no  parents  living  to  receive  her 
back  again  (cxvi.) ;  severe  penalties  for  breach  of  promise 
(ci.)  ;  for  lending  wife  or  daughter  for  temporary  wife  (cii.)  ; 
for  degrading  first  wife  to  concubine  (ciii.)  ;  for  keeping  two 
first  wives  (ciii.)  ;  for  effecting  a  marriage  contract  by  terror, 
resulting  in  death,  suicidal  or  other  (ccxcix.)  ;  and  for 
accepting  the  wife  or  child  of  a  debtor  in  pledge  (cxlix.). 
(2)  Concerning  Children :  equality  of  son  and  daughter  be- 
As  to  chii-  fore  the  law  (xxxviii.) ; 1  right  of  succession  in  the 
dren-  true  wife's  children  (xlvii.) ;  adopted  sons  not  to  be 
abandoned  nor  sold  by  their  quasi  parents  (Ixxviii.,  cclxxv.) ; 
laws  against  selling  a  child  of  free  parents  for  a  slave  (Ixviii.), 
and  against  cruelty  to  adopted  children  (cccxx.).  (3)  Con- 

1  As  in  the  patriarchalism  of  ancient  Rome. 


GOVERNMENT.  357 

cerning  the  Old  and  Helpless :  severe  punishment  for  neg- 
lect of  aged  parents  (cccxxxviii.),  especially  for  leav-  As  to  the 
ing  them  for  the  purpose  of  holding  office  (ibid.)  ;  old- 
right  of  redemption  from  all  penalties  lower  than  the  high- 
est, for  the  young,  the  old,  the  sick,  and  the  maimed  (xxii.). 
And  (4)  injuries,  however  severe,  inflicted  in  defence  of  a 
father,  held  to  be  non-criminal  (cccxxiii.)  ;  as  also  efforts  of 
relatives  to  screen  one  another  (xxxiv.)  ;  offenders  under 
sentence  of  death  who  have  sick  or  infirm  parents  or 
grandparents  dependent  on  them  for  support,  recommended 
to  imperial  mercy  (xviii.). 

Passing  from  special  family  laws,  to  more  general  ones 
in  the  interest  of  humanity,  we  note  provisions  for  General 
the  maintenance  and  care  of  poor  widows  and  Human- 
widowers,  when  helpless  and  childless,  by  the  mag- 
istrates of  their  native  towns  (Ixxxix.)  ;  mitigation  of 
punishment  in  seasons  of  heat,  and  prohibition  of  capital 
punishment  between  the  first  and  sixth  moons  of  the  year 
(appendix)  ;  limitation  of  a  legal  day's  work  to  the  time 
between  sunrise  and  sunset  .(xli.),  and  of  public  labor  (cor- 
7vr)  to  three  days  at  a  time  (Ixxxvi.)  ;  right  of  defending 
one's  house  with  arms  against  night  robbers  (cclxxvii.)  ; 
penalties  for  depriving  people  of  raiment  in  winter,  or  the 
hungry  of  food,  or  taking  away  a  ladder  from  one  who  is 
climbing  it,  or  a  bridle  from  one  on  horseback  (ccxci.) ;  for 
cruelty  to  animals  (ccxxvii.,  ccxxxi.) ;  for  damaging  anoth- 
er's land  or  tools,  or  tilling  his  soil  (xcvi.)  ;  right  of  appeal 
for  the  poor,  when  injured  by  taxation,  to  all  tribunals  in 
succession  ;  and,  in  general,  right  of  all  to  impartial  treat- 
ment in  laying  and  collecting  taxes  (Ixxx.)  ;  death  penalty 
for  causing  revolt  by  official  oppression  (ccx.) ;  laws  against 
annoyances  in  collecting  the  revenue  (cxxxiv.,  ccxxii.)  ; 
relations  of  deceased  soldiers  to  be  returned  to  their  homes 
at  public  expense  (ccl.)  ;  returning  emigrants  to  be  reas- 
signed their  lands  (xc.). 


358  STRUCTURES. 

Wise  distinctions  are  taken  in  the  same  spirit,  bearing 
Discrimi-  on  the  administration  of  penal  law ;  such  as  that 
nations.  between  principal  and  accessory  (xxx.,  cclxviii., 
cclxix.)  ;  between  attempted,  and  actually  committed,  crime 
(cclxxx.)  ;  between  reckless  killing  or  wounding,  and  the 
same  acts  where  no  sufficient  warning  could  be  given 
(ccxci.).  No  increase  of  punishment  to  enure  from  aggra- 
vating circumstances  not  kri*own  to  the  offender  (xxxv.)  ; 
designs  punishable  in  one  set  of  offences  not  to  work  the 
same  effect  in  a  different  set  (ibid.) ;  limitations  to  the  time 
within  which  one  is  responsible  for  the  effects  of  a  wound 
(ccciii.) ;  just  debts  not  to  be  recovered  by  violence  (cxlix.)  ; 
fighting  punished  according  to  the  amount  of  injury  done, 
and  the  question  which  party  is  in  the  right  (cccii.).  Pro- 
vision is  made  for  punishing  actions  done  contrary  to  the 
spirit  of  the  law,  though  not  breaches  of  any  specific  clause 
(Ixxxv.)  ;  and  for  determination  of  cases  not  coming  within 
the  statutes,  by  comparison  with  others  and  subsequent 
reference  to  the  highest  tribunal  in  the  land  (xliv.).1 

Interference  of  the  military  with  the  course  of  the  law  is 
The  Courts  strictly  forbidden  (cccxli.)  ;  statements  of  witnesses 
of  Law.  are  not  to  ke  altered  (ccccxxii.)  ;  examinations  to  be 
confined  to  the  charges  made  (ccccvi.)  ;  offenders  to  be 
confronted  with  their  associates  (ccccv.)  ;  witnesses  not  to 
be  imprisoned,  nor  examined  with  cruelty  (cccxcvi.)  ;  testi- 
mony of  interested  parties,  of  the  very  old  or  the  very 
young,  not  required  nor  received  (cccciv.)  ;  magistrates 
known  to  be  interested  for  or  against  the  parties,  not  to 
try  the  case  (cccxxxv.).  Refusal  to  hear  proper  informa- 
tion, and  acceptance  of  improper  (cccxxxv.) ;  conviction  on 
anonymous  information  (cccxxxiii.) ;  recrimination  of  offend- 
ers on  innocent  persons  (ccccviii.)  ;  wilfully  unjust  sen- 
tences (ccccix.),  —  are  all  severely  punished.  Judgment  is 
to  be  rendered  according  to  laws  and  precedents,  without  use 

1  For  a  similar  principle  among  the  Hebrews,  see  Deut.  xvii.,  8-13. 


GOVERNMENT.  359 

of  previous  imperial  edicts  (ccccxv.).  The  Emperor  is  ex- 
pected to  reverse  any  false  judgment  (ccccx.).  The  false 
accuser  shall  reimburse  the  loss  of  the  person  he  has 
caused  to  be  unjustly  punished  (cccxxxvi.). 

Unnecessary  severity  to  prisoners  is  punished  (cccxii., 
cccxcv.),  as  also  injuries  by  the  police  to  offenders 

.          .  . . .  .       Prisoners. 

who  make  no  resistance  to  arrest  (ccclxxxvin.). 
Prisoners  are  to  be  provided  with  food,  clothes,  and  med- 
icines on  application  to  authorities  ;  they  may  be  released 
from  fetters  and  close  confinement  when  sick,  or  allowed 
to  hold  free  intercourse  with  their  families  ;  and  jailers  are 
responsible  for  refusing  to  make  such  application  (cccci.). 
The  right  of  the  convict  to  protest  against  his  sentence  is 
secured  (ccccx.),  and  the  execution  of  the  death  penalty  for- 
bidden till  after  ratification  by  the  Emperor  (ccccxxi.).  In 
the  primitive  spirit  of  domestic  discipline,  the  criminal  is 
tempted  to  confession  by  promise  of  pardon  (ccxvii.,  xxv., 
xxix.). 

The  minuteness  of  governmental  supervision  is  made 
to  subserve  good  aims,  by  penalties,  for  neglecting  Protective 
to  interfere  to  prevent  violence  (ccci.),  or  to  deliver  supervision. 
up  lost  property  within  five  days  aftep  finding  it  (cli.) ;  for 
exciting  litigation  (cccxl.)  ;  for  suppressing  the  discovery  of 
stolen  goods  (cccliii.)  ;  for  circulating  immoral  writings  or 
keeping  places  of  vicious  amusement  (ccclxxxiv.)  ;  for  usury 
(cxlix.),  monopoly  (clvi.),  and  tricks  of  trade  by  false  weights 
and  labels  (ibid.)  ;  for  forming  secret  societies  harmful  to 
the  public  peace  (appendix)  ;  for  neglecting  to  cultivate 
one's  land  (xcvii.). 

For  their  ethical  value  we  note  laws   against  bribery 
(cccxliv.,  cccliv.)  ;  embezzlement  (cxix.,  cxxv.),  espe-  Other  good 
cially  of  sums  due  to  soldiers  (cxxix.)  ;  dilapidation  laws- 
of  property  held  in  trust  (cl.)  ;  fraudulent  land  sales  (xciil), 
and  false  appraisements   (cliii.) ;  second  mortgages  (xcv.) ; 


360  STRUCTURES. 

partiality  in  examination  of  candidates  (lii.)  ;  kidnapping 
(cclxxv.)  ;  torture  of  old,  sick,  or  young  (cccciv.)  ;  black- 
mailing (cclxxiii.)  ;  non-burial  of  corpse  (clxxx.)  ;  disturbing 
graves  (cclxxvi.)  ;  defacing  public  monuments  (ccclxxvi.), 
and  injuring  public  ways  (ccccxxxiv.,  ccccxxxvi.)  ;  sorcery 
and  magic  for  malignant  purposes  (cclxxxviii.,  cclxxxix.). 

As   tending  to  public  security  the  strict  responsibility 
offi  iai       °^  offices  is  to  be  praised,  though  the  laws  are 


exceedingly  severe.  Thus,  pretending  to  official 
authority,  and  official  interference  without  author- 
ity, are  capital  crimes  (ccclx.,  ccclxii.).  For  recommending 
bad  men,  death  is  the  penalty  ;  for  falsification  of  an  edict 
or  counterfeiting  a  seal,  the  same  (xlix.,  ccclv.,  ccclviii.)  ; 
non-report  of  offences,  non-prevention  of  crime  where  it  is 
possible  ;  false  appraisement,  embezzlement,  waste  or  con- 
cealment in  collection  of  imposts  ;  non-recovery  of  escaped 
felons,  or  failure  to  secure  culprits  within  a  stated  time  ; 
treating  subordinate  officers  with  contempt,  or  surrendered 
prisoners  with  harshness,  —  are  all  punished  in  various 
degrees,  from  banishment  to  castigation. 

Combined  with  these  just  or  benignant  statutes  are 
startling  many  startling  anomalies.  We  find  scales  for  esti- 
anomaiies,  mating  guilt  which  are  incomprehensible  till  we 
from  vari-  refer  them  to  the  social  traditions  under  which  the 


ous  causes. 


oriental  conscience  is  trained.     They  may  be  clas- 
sified as  proceeding,  — 

i .  From  the  patriarchal  rule  of  honor  to  the  old.  —  Pen- 
From  alties  are  proportioned  inversely  to  the  relative 
honor  to  ages  of  members  of  the  same  family.  Even  for 
the  old.  guch  Offences  as  stealing  (cclxix.,  cclxxii.)  or  killing 
(cccxxxv.),  as  well  as  for  extorting  by  threats  (cclxxiii.), 
striking  (cccxvi.),  or  disturbing  graves  (cclxxvi.),  the  pun- 
ishment of  the  elder  is  less  than  that  of  the  younger 


GOVERNMENT.  361 

brother.1  Accusation  of  a  father  by  a  son,  or  an  elder 
brother  by  a  younger,  is  an  offence,  even  if  true 
(cccxxxvii.)  ;  a  marriage  contract  by  a  son  is  to  be  given 
up,  if  the  parents  have  arranged  a  different  one  (ci.). 

From  this  patriarchal  principle  come  extreme  severities, 
because  intended  as  safeguards  against  crimes  that  threaten 
the  very  foundations  of  religion  and  social  order.  The  pen- 
alty affixed  to  striking  a  parent  is  decapitation,  the  highest 
known  to  the  law  (cccxviii.) ;  to  killing,  even  by  accident,  a 
hundred  blows  and  perpetual  banishment  (ibid.).  A  child 
abusing  his  parent  may  be  put  to  death,  if  the  latter  enters 
complaint  (cccxxix.).  For  killing  one's  own  child,  the  pen- 
alty is  but  sixty  blows,  and  banishment  for  a  year  (cccxx.) ! 
For  killing  a  son  or  grandson  who  strikes  him,  one  is  not 
punished  (cccxx.). 

These  paternal  rights  were  not  greater  than  in  ancient 
Rome,  where  a  son  could  not  only  hold  no  property  during 
his  father's  lifetime,  but  could  be  sold  or  slain,  at  his  will.2 
The  Mosaic  penalties  for  abuse  of  parents  were  equally 
severe.3  On  complaint  of  father  and  mother,  a  rebellious 
son  was  to  be  given  up  to  the  people  to  be  stoned.4  The 
Egyptians  burned  the  parricide  alive,  after  torture.5  So 
inconceivably  wicked  was  parricide  to  the  Hebrew  con- 
science that  it  is  not  even  recognized  in  their  law.6  Herod- 
otus says  that  the  ancient  Persians  did  not  believe  it 
possible.7 

2.  From  reverence  for  the  family  bond.  —  Scale  of  pen- 
alties proportioned  to  nearness  of  relationship  with   Fromthe 
the  injured  party.     This  rule,  applied  to  criminal  family 
intercourse  (clxviii.),  to  assault  (cccxvii.),  and  even 
to  the  treatment  of  slaves  (cccxiii),  is  reversed  in  the  case 
of  theft  (cclxix-cclxxii.).    A  curious  ethical  satire  is  involved 

1  So  Plato.     See  the  curious  passages  in  his  Laws,  B.  ix;  also,  Republic,  B.  in. 

*  Hadley,  pp.  120,  124.  *  Exod.  xxi.  15,  17-  *  Deut  xxi.  21. 

e  Diod.  I.  77.  «  Saalschutz,  Mosaische  Reckt,  ch.  35.  7  Herod.  I.  137. 


362  STRUCTURES. 

in  the  law  that  punishes  with  whipping  one  who  evades 
the  duty  of  mourning  for  his  relatives  (clxxix.). 

3.  From*  marital  authority.  —  A  man    may  divorce  his 
From         w^e   (w^h   certain  limitations  already  stated)   for 
marital  au-  barrenness,   lasciviousness,   disregard   of   her  hus- 
band's parents,  talkativeness,  theft,  bad  temper,  or 

permanent  infirmity  (cxvi.).  If  a  wife  absconds  when  her 
husband  refuses  to  be  divorced,  the  penalty  is  a  hundred 
blows  and  to  be  sold  in  marriage  ;  and,  if  while  thus  absent 
she  contracts  a  marriage,  it  is  death  (cxvii.).  A  wife  strik- 
ing her  husband  is  punished  according  to  the  injury  done  ; 
a  husband  striking  his  wife  only  exercises  his  right,  unless 
he  wounds  her,  when  the  penalty  is  two  degrees  less  than 
in  the  former  case  (cccxv.).  There  is  much  inconsistency 
in  these  marriage  laws.  Thus  a  husband  may  put  to  death 
his  adulterous  wife  and  her  paramour  ;  and,  if  he  spares 
her,  she  is  to  be  sold.1  Yet,  elsewhere,  if  a  husband  kills 
his  wife  for  abusing  his  parents,  without  accusing  her  be- 
fore a  magistrate,  he  is  punished  with  a  hundred  blows 
(ccxciii.).  If  a  wife  accuses  her  husband,  even  truly,  she  is 
severely  punished,  and  the  accused,  if  he  plead  guilty,  par- 
doned ;  yet  an  exception,  immediately  added,  in  favor  of 
true  charges  relating  to  very  serious  crimes,  and  of  real 
grounds  of  complaint  in  maltreatment  of  any  sort,  seems 
to  rescind  the  whole  law  (cccxxxvii.). 

The  apparent  impartiality  of  the  law  on  avenging  adul- 
tery, as  to  male  and  female  offenders,  is  proved  fallacious 
by  the  entire  absence  of  opportunity  for  the  wife  to  protect 
herself  from  infidelities  on  the  part  of  the  husband,  whose 
remedy  against  both  her  and  her  paramour,  in  case  of  her 
being  the  guilty  party,  is  in  his  own  hands. 

4.  From    Slavery.  —  Harboring   a   fugitive   servant   or 
From         marrying  one  is  punished  in  the  same  manner  as 
slavery.       ^  sjave  himself  (cxvi).    A  slave  striking  his  mas- 

1  By  Hebrew  law,  both  parties  are  stored      (Dent.  xxii.  22.) 


GOVERNMENT.  363 

ter,  or  even  accidentally  killing  him,  is  to  be  put  to  death 
(cccxiv.).  A  freeman  striking  a  slave  is  punished  one  de- 
gree less  than  in  case  of  equals  ;  a  slave  striking  a  freeman, 
one  degree  more  (cccxiii.). 

Yet  killing  a  slave  is  murder,  and  punished  with  death 
(cccxiii.).  Nothing  in  Chinese  slave  laws  equals  in  injustice 
the  Hebrew  statute  by  which  illicit  intercourse  of  a  free- 
man with  a  slave  is  punished  by  scourging  (not  death)  for 
her,  "  because  she  was  not  free  ;  "  while  he  is  let  off  with 
a  trespass-offering  for  his  sin.1 

5.  From  reverence  for  official  or  social  position.  —  For 
wounding,  the  scale  of  penalties  is  graduated  ac-  Fromoffi. 
cording  to  the  nearness  of  the  injured  to  the  Empe-  ciaireia- 
ror  (cccv.)  ;  for  assaulting  officers,  according  to  their 
rank  (cccx.)  ;  for  abusive  language,  the  same  (cccxxiv. 
cccxxvi.).  Special  indulgences  are  granted  to  persons  of 
high  rank  or  great  services  (ccccii.,  cccciii.).  These  distinc- 
tions have  a  certain  justification  for  the  Chinese  mind  in  its 
rooted  belief  that  rank  is  the  reward  of  merit,  and  the  earnest 
efforts  of  the  nation  to  carry  the  belief  into  practice.  Here 
belong  the  curious  laws  which  embody  the  sacredness  of  the 
imperial  dignity  ;  such  as  prohibit  travel  on  roads  that  have 
been  expressly  prepared  for  the  royal  march  (clxxxiii.,  clxxxv., 
clxxxvii.),  or  severely  punish  informalities  in  the  use  of  the 
royal  name  (Ixiv.),  or  errors  in  transcribing  royal  edicts 
(ccclv.).  By  a  law  now  designated  as  obsolete,  imperial 
personages  and  high  officials  were  not  to  be  represented  in 
theatres ;  but  fictitious  characters,  fitted  for  good  moral 
effect,  as  just  men,  chaste  wives,  and  obedient  children, 
were  permitted  (ccclxxxiv.). 

Here,  too,  we  class  those  provisions  of  public  policy, 
which  aim  to  secure  the  loyalty  of  officers  by  clothing  them 
with  strange  and  vast  responsibilities  to  the  central  power  ; 
for  example,  by  forbidding  them  to  form  local  ties  in  *:heir 

1  Levit.  xix.  20. 


364  STRUCTURES. 

own  districts  either  by  marriage  or  by  real  estate  (xciv.,  ex.) ; 
by  exacting  from  them  full  report  of  all  calamities  and  all 
misconduct,  even  their  own  (xci.,  clxxi.)  ;  by  making  them 
inspectors  of  each  other's  conduct,  with  penalties  for  con- 
cealing their  knowledge  (cxxx.) ;  and  by  holding  them  re- 
sponsible for  the  remissness  of  their  inferiors  in  detecting 
criminals,  and  for  their  oppressive  dealing  with  the  people 
(ccx.,  ccclxxxvii.,  cccxciv.). 

6.  From  the  peculiar  nature  of  Chinese  religion  as  a 
From  re-  cultus  of  elemental  powers,  by  the  Head  of  the  State. 
hgion.  NQ  private  person  shall  perform  rites  to  Heaven 
(clxi.),  nor  pretend  to  discover  prognostics  (ccclxiii.)  j1  nor 
shall  an  official  astronomer  fail  to  announce  such  signs  as 
really  appear,  on  penalty  of  the  rod  (clxxvii.).  As  the  ra- 
tionalism of  this  State  religion  is  expressed  in  severe  laws 
against  sorcery  and  magic,2  and  even  noisy  processions  with 
idols  (cclxxxix.,  cclvi.,  clxii.),  so  its  superstition  is  betrayed 
by  making  the  stealing  of  articles  used  in  religious  rites, 
during  or  after  their  use,  a  capital  crime  in  the  first  case, 
and  next  to  capital  in  the  second  (cclvii.). 

We  come  finally  to  laws  which  express  the  intense  hor- 
ror  of  the  race  for  certain  kinds  of  crime,  for  which 
tne  highest  penalty  seems  to  be  regarded  as  inade- 
quate.  Of  these  the  most  prominent  are,  of  course, 
offences  against  the  life  of  that  Government  which  is  the 
will  of  Heaven  and  the  hope  of  Man.  High  treason  is  de- 
fined as  "attempt  to  subvert  the  government  or  destroy 
the  imperial  palace,  temples,  or  tombs,"  and  the  penalty  for 
principals  and  accessories  is  to  be  "  cut  to  pieces,"  which 
means  killed  in  any  cruel  way  that  may  chance  to  be  de- 
vised ;  while  all  male  adult  relatives  are  to  be  beheaded,  and 
all  minors  and  females  enslaved  (ccliv.,  cclv.).  Rebellion, 

1  So  the  Hebrew  Law.     (Deut.  xviii.  20). 

*  The  Hebrews  stoned  both  witches  and  conjurers  of  spirits.  (Exod.  xxii.  18 ;  Levit. 
xx.  27). 


GOVERNMENT.  365 

defined  as  "  attempt  to  violate  the  divine  order,"  is  punished 
by  beheading,  confiscation  of  property,  and  banishment  of 
relations  (cclv.).  Sacrilege  is  a  capital  crime  (cclvii.),  as  is 
all  dealing  in  sorcery  to  compass  death  (cclxxxix.)  ;  and 
murder  for  magical  purposes  is  pursued  with  penalties 
whose  severity  can  only  be  explained  by  a  half-believing 
horror  of  that  great  darkness  of  superstition  which  brooded 
over  the  rude  Shamanism  of  the  steppes  whence  the  race 
had  emerged,  and  which  has  always  beset  its  better  civili- 
zation. The  criminal  is  doomed  to  die  by  slow  and  painful 
execution,  and  all  inmates  of  his  house  to  perpetual  banish- 
ment. The  idea  involved  in  such  now  obsolete  penalties, 
that  the  force  of  laws  can  exterminate  the  very  seeds  of 
unnatural  crimes,  is  not  peculiar  to  the  intense  faith  of  the 
Chinese  in  police-regulation  and  machinery  ;  and  its  com- 
bination, as  here,  with  a  superstitious  belief  in  invisible 
powers  of  evil  apart  from  the  human  will,  has  been  devel- 
oped in  the  Christian  world  into  processes  of  atrocious 
cruelty,  infinitely  surpassing  any  thing  which  has  been  pos- 
sible for  the  semi-rationalistic  Chinese. 


The  anomalies  of  this  Penal  Code,  so  startlingly  combin- 
ing mercy  and  cruelty,  enlightened  principles  and   Expiana- 
barbarous  applications,  remind  us  of  the  heteroge-  tlonof 

0          anomalies 

neous  composition  of  Oriental  Codes  in  general,  in  Oriental 
whose  characteristics  have  been  explained  in  a  for-  c 
mer  volume.  It  is  doubtful  if  these  inconsistencies  of  leg- 
islation are  greater  in  the  East  than  in  the  West.  We 
should  expect  much  incongruity  in  that  of  the  Chinese, 
from  their  peculiar  tendency  to  a  balancing  of  unreconciled 
opposites,  to  a  centre  of  indifference  between  poles,  whether 
in  emotion,  thought,  or  action.  The  dualism  of  Yin  and 
Yang  finds  its  expression  in  jurisprudence  also. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  these  Codes,  whether  of 


366  STRUCTURES. 

the  Ta-tsing,  Mann,  or  the  Pentateuch,  embody  the  laws, 
customs,  and  rules  of  many  successive  ages,  gradually  work- 
ing themselves  free  from  the  imperfection  of  the  Family- 
Idea,  and  all  preserved  together  with  less  regard  to  consist- 
ency or  to  possibility  of  execution,  than  to  the  conservatism 
that  shrinks  from  disturbing  the  old  records  of  the  fathers  ; 
while  the  need  of  progress  is  met  by  fictions  of  interpreta- 
tion suited  to  the  time.  These  venerated  statutes  only 
illustrate  on  a  greater  scale  the  defects  attached  to  our 
own  codes,  of  obsolete  laws  and  impossible  presumptions, 
lingering  on  through  all  revisions,  monuments  of  the  slow- 
ness of  the  human  mind  in  arriving  at  clear  statements  of 
social  relations  and  wants.  Their  continuance  of  course 
allows  a  certain  play,  where  the  spirit  itself  is  narrow  or 
harsh,  or  even  barbarous,  to  those  darker  passions  which 
descend  in  the  blood  and  brain  of  all  races,  and  leap  into 
unexpected  power  on  occasions  of  social  excitement  and 
surprise.  For  this  reason  alone,  a  cruel  or  unjust  principle 
should  be  utterly  and  for  ever  wiped  off  the  statute-book 
the  moment 'its  applications  cease  to  be  allowed  by  pub- 
lic opinion,  with  that  alacrity  which  Milton,  in  his  plea  for 
a  thorough  Reformation,  calls  "  shaking  fire  out  of  the 
bosom."  1  This  is  a  necessary  safeguard  in  the  education 
of  the  mass  of  men,  whose  social  life  is  largely  instinctive 
and  traditional,  retaining,  skin-deep,  and  ready  for  moments 
of  temptation,  the  old  passions  and  superstitions  which 
should  have  been  deprived  of  all  educational  prestige  what- 
ever. In  the  Ta-tsing-leuh-li  stand  laws  of  paternal  rights 
over  life  and  liberty,  as  well  as  slave  penalties,  which  we 
know  to  have  no  validity  in  the  Chinese  courts.  A  civilized 
sentiment  has  outgrown  them  ;  nor  do  occasions  arise  to 
stir  the  fanaticism  of  such  patriarchal  and  slave-holding  tra- 
ditions in  a  community  steadily  emancipated  by  labor.  But 

1  The  same  is  to  be  said  of  superstitions  which  stand  in  statutes  long  after  they  are  out- 
grown by  the  enlightened  conscience,  and  afford  hold  for  the  blind  bigotry  of  unreasoning 
people  ;  such  as  the  Sunday  laws  of  the  New  England  States. 


GOVERNMENT.  367 

what  must,«  after  all,  be  the  effect  of  the  barbarous  pen- 
alties of  the  Shu-king  and  the  Tcheou-li,  as  continually 
associated  with  names  and  books  held  in  the  highest  honor, 
upon  the  popular  conscience  and  conduct  ?  We  are  assured, 
by  such  authorities  as  Wells  Williams,  that.  "  the  inflic- 
tion of  these  penalties,  still  not  uncommon  in  Persia  and 
Turkey,  is  not  now  allowed  nor  practised  in  China.'.' l  Yet 
may  we  not  in  part  ascribe  to  their  currency  in  law  codes 
and  classic  books,  publicly  read  and  taught,  that  propensity 
to  torturing  criminals  in  illegal  ways  which  the  same  au- 
thor describes  as  rendering  Chinese  courts  a  real  terror  to 
the  people  ? 2 

The  ethical  contradictions  involved  in  transmitting  the 
whole  mass  of  codes,  dogmas,  and  traditions,  which 
constitute  a  people's  history,  as  one  sacred  canon, 
make  the  Bible  of  every  positive  religion  in  the  atry- 
world  demoralizing  to  the  popular  conscience,  in  propor- 
tion as  it  is  made  a  part  of  education  to  reconcile  them  in 
some  way  as  portions  of  an  authoritative  record.  That  the 
Chinese  penal  code,  commencing  in  reality  not  less  than 
two  thousand  years  ago,  should  contain  much  of  this  self- 
contradiction,  is  not  more  natural  than  that  the  same  should 
be  true  of  the  Christian  Old  and  New  Testaments,  which 
are  regarded  with  far  more  exclusive  reverence  than  is 
shown  by  the  Chinese  to  their  classics.  Not  only  are  they 
made  mischievous  to  those  who  hold  them  to  be  one  relig- 
ious law  and  rule,  through  their  obvious  mutual  incongru- 
ities, but  each  contains  within  itself  such  opposite  ele- 
ments that  both  alike  have  served  for  centuries  to  bewilder 
the  moral  sense,  inspiring  noble  humanities  on  the  one 
hand,  and  furnishing  authority  on  the  other  for  the  un- 
matched barbarism  that  has  grown  out  of  belief  in  sorcery 


1  Williams,  I.  306. 

1  Ibid.,  I.  409.     Mendoza,  writing  in  the  sixteenth  century,  describes  Chinese  capital  pun- 
ishment as  of  the  most  barbarous  character.     (History  of  China,  II.  116). 


368  STRUCTURES. 

and  diabolic  possession,  as  well  as  anthropomorphic  features 
that  are  little  or  no  better. 

The  cruelties  of  the  Chinese  code,  in  fact,  compare  very 
a-    favorably  with   those   of   other  races.      In   China, 


tive  miid-  there  has  been  no  use  of  the  ordeal,  which  has  been 
Chinese  universal  in  the  East  and  in  all  Christian  nations 
Code.  down  to  the  thirteenth  century,  and  was  fostered 
for  ages  by  the  Christian  Church.  In  China,  there  is  no 
penal  burning  at  the  stake,  so  fearfully  common  in  the 
West  at  the  opening  of  the  modern  age.  In  China,  torture 
was  forbidden  to  touch  the  persons  of  the  old  and  the 
young.  The  witchcraft  persecutions  in  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica, down  to  the  last  century,  directed  their  cruelties 
especially  against  old  women  ;  and  children  of  nine  and 
ten  years  did  not  escape  them.  Torture  was  embodied  in 
all  mediaeval  codes,  in  proportion  to  their  origination  in 
Roman  law  ;  diffused  over  Europe  by  the  Inquisition  ;  de- 
fended by  minds  like  Bacon,  resisted  and  abolished  mainly 
by  free-thinkers  like  Montesquieu  and  Voltaire  ;  not  aban- 
doned in  the  principal  European  States  till  the  close  of  the 
last  century,  and  in  some  smaller  ones  lingering  far  on  into 
the  present.  It  is  common  to  refer  to  such  penalties  as 
"  pagan  ;  "  but  the  most  careful  inquirer  into  their  history 
says,  without  qualification,  that  "  Christian  communities 
have  systematized  the  administration  of  torture  with  a  cold- 
blooded ferocity  unknown  to  the  legislation  of  the  heathen 
nations  whence  they  derived  it."  l  Two  centuries  have  not 
elapsed  since  ten  of  the  English  regicides,  condemned  for 
high  treason  to  the  divine  right  of  kings,  were  every  one 
of  them  hanged,  then  cut  down  alive,  disembowelled,  be- 
headed, and  quartered  by  judicial  sentence  of  the  royal 
court.2 

The  forms  of  punishment  employed  by  the  Chinese  are 

1  Lea,  Superstition  and  Force,  p.  389  ;  also  pp.  379-387  ;  Lecky,  Rationalism,  I.  333- 
349- 

*  See  Westm.  Rev.,  January,  1873. 


GOVERNMENT.  369 

similar  to  those  of  other  races,  —  imprisonment,  exile,  death 
by  strangling  and  beheading,  or  even  by  cutting  in 
pieces  ; 1  and  last,  the  rod,  applied  in  all  ordinary 
cases  on  a  scale  rising  from  ten  to  a  hundred  blows.  The 
Roman  fasces  and  the  Russian  knout  are  familiar  instances 
to  prove  the  wide  use  of  a  punishment  which  only  associa- 
tions peculiar  to  ourselves  lead  us  to  regard  as  specially 
degrading  or  cruel.  The  Hebrews  used  it  in  all  ordinary 
cases  of  crime.2  The  Puritans  in  America  whipped  men 
and  women  for  not  showing  respect  to  a  clergyman,  and 
for  staying  away  from  church.  On  the  widest  esti-  The  death 
mates,  the  number  of  crimes  punishable  with  death  Penalty- 
by  Chinese  law  does  not  compare  with  that  prescribed  by 
the  old  English  statutes,  which  the  Massachusetts  Puritans 
stripped  of  two-thirds  their  barbarity  by  reducing  their 
death  penalties  to  the  Hebrew  standard.  Yet  even  these 
humaner  codes  doomed  men  to  death  for  blaspheming  the 
Trinity  or  the  king,  and  even  for  profane  swearing.3  Sir 
Thomas  More,  who  was  humane  enough  to  oppose  the 
death  penalty  for  theft,  apparently  preferred  cropping  the 
ears.4 

There  is  undoubtedly  an  element  in  the  Chinese  charac- 
ter to  whjch  these  darker  features  of  legislation  The  dark 
correspond.     It  appears  in  all  times  of  excitement  "jjj^ 
and  panic,   keeping  its   hold  mainly  through   the  character, 
singular  insensibility  of  the  Mongolian   to  physical  pain. 
But,  after  all,  the  ideal,  and  in  great  part  the  practice  also, 
are  humane  ;  and  if  the  Code  be  closely  studied,  it  will  be 
found  to  carry  its  own  antidote  to  these  destructive  forces. 

Thus  the  distinction  already  mentioned  as  laid  Penal 
down  .  in    the    outset     between    "  nominal "     and  Mitiga- 

tions* 

"actual"   punishment,   so  that  "where  ten  blows 

1  Williams,  I.  415. 

2  Deut.  xxv.  (1-3).    For  the  widespread  use  of  this  punishment,  and  its  possible  superiority 
in  some  respects  to  other  and  severer  penalties,  see  Cooper's  Hist,  of  the  Rod  (London,  1869). 

s  See  Westm.  Rev.,  January,  1873,  p.  61.  *  Utopia. 

24 


37°  STRUCTURES. 

are  specified  four  are  to  be  inflicted,"  appears  intended  to 
cover  the  whole  code,  and  of  course  gives  room  for  neu- 
tralizing the  severest  features  of  the  law.  So  with  the 
tables  of  money  commutations,  and  the  abundant -mitiga- 
tions provided  for  office,  rank,  virtue,  services.  Some  of 
the  harshest  are  obviously  absurd  and  impossible,  and  evi- 
dently meant  only  to  express  detestation  of  crimes  believed 
too  horrible  ever  to  be  committed.  That  a  child  should  be 
strangled  for  harsh  words  to  his  father  cannot  be  seriously 
intended,  as  is  evident  from  the  punishment  being  made  to 
depend  on  his  parent's  doing  so  incredible  a  thing  as  enter 
a  complaint  to  compass  his  death  (cccxxix.).  That  slaves 
should  be  beheaded  for  merely  striking  their  masters  is  less 
improbable  ;  but  the  object  of  the  statute  was  evidently  to 
emphasize  the  unnaturalness  of  the  action.  Whether  the 
laws  against  rebellion,  sacrilege,  and  treason  have  been  to 
any  great  extent  carried  out  on  the  innocent  families  of 
offenders  is  questionable.1  They  are  the  language  of  in- 
tense desire  to  root  out  the  very  stock  capable  of  bearing 
such  fruit.  Instances  of  the  banishment  of  whole  families 
of  noted  rebels  are,  however,  not  infrequent.  It  was  pro- 
posed to  abolish  this  form  of  imputation,  but  imperial  fears 
have  hitherto  resisted  the  effort. 

A  highly  reputed  work,  called  "  Advice  to  Officials," 
gives  many  humane  provisions  for  lightening  the  painful- 
ness  of  bambooing,  for  exempting  certain  classes,  —  old, 
young,  sick,  hungry,  naked,  and  those  already  beaten,  —  for 
suiting  the  time  to  the  criminal's  comfort,  for  using  the 
smaller  rather  than  the  larger  rod.  The  great  point  is  to 
admit  compassion,  without  which  the  end  of  punishment 
cannot  be  answered.2 

Such  considerations  help  to  justify  the  remarkable  state- 
ment of  Staunton,  that  "  one  object  much  considered  in  the 

1  Staunton,  Introd.  to  Transl.  of  Penal  Code,  xxviii. 
*  Giles's  Sketches,  p.  141. 


GOVERNMENT.  3/1 

Code  is  to  combine  as  much  as  possible  seventy  in  denun- 
ciation with  lenity  in  execution."  "  With  all  its  defects," 
he  adds,  "  this  Code  is  generally  spoken  of  by  the  natives 
with  pride  and  admiration,  and  all  they  seem  to  desire  is 
its  just  and  impartial  execution."  l 


In  external  form,  Chinese  government  is  an  imperial 
bureaucracy.  It  centres,  not  in  the  expressed  will  . 
of  the  people,  but  in  the  organized  authority  of  the  canceof 
official  ;  who  looks  for  reward  and  punishment  to 
a  higher  official,  and  he  to  a  still  higher  board  of 
officials,  till  the  fountain  of  office  is  reached  in  the  x 
Emperor,  and  its  form  resolved  into  an  earthly  of  right 
providence  for  the  people,  instead  of  representing, 
as  in  a  democracy,  the  people's  allegiance  only  to  them- 
selves. In  substance,  this  idea  of  office  does  not  ignore  the 
authority  of  the  people,  but  refers  it  to  a  higher  principle 
than  mere  popular  will.  This  is  the  important  germ  of 
political  wisdom,  folded  in  the  crudity  of  Chinese  official- 
ism, which  we  must  assign  to  its  bearings  on  comparative 
political  science,  and  on  the  true  idea  of  freedom.  What 
is  the  special  meaning  of  this  childlike  acceptance  of  a  law 
higher  than  private  will  and  embodied  in  official  providence  ? 
Certainly  it  is  not  that  pure  self-government  which  performs 
the  duties  and  maintains  the  rights  belonging  to  an  indi- 
vidual in  society,  without  compulsion,  because  itself  obe- 
dient to  universal  principles,  ethical,  social,  spiritual.  But 
it  is  at  infinitely  greater  remove  from  enthroning  individual 
desire  and  egotistic  dreams.  It  is  the  opposite  of  the  Celtic 
frenzy  that  would  revolutionize  and  recreate  institutions  on 
the  instant,  imposing  the  unlimited  self-assertion  of  leaders 
by  force  upon  all  mankind.  It  is  equally  opposed  to  the 
pseudo-American  claim  of  absolute  authority  for  massed 

1  Statin  ton,  Introd.,  xxviii. 


3/2  STRUCTURES. 

physical  power,  unity  of  numbers  and  wills,  without  regard 
to  that  higher  right  so  often  embodied  in  the  minority,  and 
still  more  often  in  the  compacter  and  purer  unity  of  a  per- 
sonal ideal.  In  complete  contrast  with  these,  here  is  a 
social  conviction,  having  the  full  force  of  religion,  of  the 
reality  of  a  best  for  each  and  for  all,  which  is  not  subject  to 
the  caprices  of  men  or  multitudes  ;  and  which  must  find 
its  expression  in  official  authority,  entrusted  to  the  best 
and  wisest  persons. 

For  the  Chinese,  therefore,  the  secret  of  government  is 
function,  —  function  rightly  fulfilled  for  the  general  good  ; 
function,  not  as  official  routine  to  be  put  through  for  the 
mere  continuance  of  government,  still  less  to  be  pursued  by 
all  men  as  carrion,  flung  out  for  voracious  beasts  of  prey, 
but  as  the  root-fact  in  human  nature  ;  the  order,  in  whose 
right  administration  is  involved  the  very  existence  of  society. 


That  this  right  sense  of  the  value  of  functions  is  com- 
Causesof  kined  with  an  over-intense  faith  in  organization, 
over-  explains  the  main  faults  of  Chinese  officialism  ; 
sciaiism.  wnic]-,  are^  —  excessive  pedagogy  and  management 
of  details,  extreme  discipline  and  subordination,  much 
inertia  and  repression  in  the  life  of  the  individual  and  of 
the  State.  The  drift  to  organization  hastens  to  merge  the 
abstract  in  the  concrete ;  so  that  the  idea  of  government  is 
held  fast  in  its  own  earliest  moulds  of  function,  in  patri- 
archal sovereignty,  in  the  sway  of  family  and  clan,  the  rule 
of  the  elder,  the  discipline  of  lower  by  higher  members  in 
the  domestic  circle.  Political  science  is  thus  forbidden  to 
develop  into  forms  of  progress,  which  require  an  unor- 
ganised realm  of  study  in  the  free  personal  thought  and 
imagination.  To  us,  who  are  rapidly  tending  to  an  equally 
exclusive  faith  in  concrete  values  and  organized  sources  of 
power,  the  typical  form  of  this  tendency  in  Chinese  bureau- 


GOVERNMENT.  373 

cracy  is  a  lesson  whose  significance  we  shall  •  probably  be 
forced  to  heed. 

What  redeems  these  puerilities  and  this  arrest  of  de- 
velopment is  the  relation  of  a  true  faith  in  function  Faithin 
to  its  own  ideal  ;  its  aim  to  fulfil  the  best  social  tmefunc- 
service  without  compulsion,  through  the  power  of 
personal  virtue.  That  Chinese  emphasis  on  function  really 
has  root  in  this  ideal  is  plain  from  the  constant  assertion 
of  it  as  the  beginning  of  all  real  government.  Self-disci- 
pline in  the  narrowest  private  spheres  is  the  recognized  ba- 
sis of  power  and  right  to  rule  the  State.  Every  Chinese 
teacher  refers  the  sanction  of  the  highest  powers  in  the 
land  to  the  universal  meaning  of  function,  as  accountability 
to  the  duties  of  the  position ;  and  so  treats  the  idea  in  a 
broadly  democratic  way.  The  oldest  ideal  monarchs,  having 
been  faithful  in  lowliest  spheres,  were  called  from  the  shop 
and  the  channelled  fields  to  greater  and  the  greatest  spheres. 
Influence  flows  from  the  person  on  his  family,  thence  on 
his  neighborhood,  town,  country,  mankind.  It  is  so  for  the 
peasant,  so  for  the  prince.  The  productive  quality  of  virtue 
is  not  of  compulsion,  but  goes  behind  law,  is  the  free  flow 
of  nature,  the  original  tide-way  of  the  faculties  fitly  em- 
ployed :  this  the  source  of  law,  of  justice,  of  humanity. 
The  grand  first  kings,  who  could  reach  out  to  find  and  use 
ministers  like  themselves,  swayed  mankind  by  noble  ex- 
ample in  their  special  duties,  and  laws  were  needless. 

This  idealism  of  function  reverses  the  apparent  order  of 
things,  and  derives  authority  after  all  from  the  peo-  ultimate 
pie :  so  little  does  the  external  form  of  a  gov-  jJjTJIo. 
ernment  betray  its  secret  quality.  The  Chinese,  pie's  good, 
referring  functions  to  universal  principles  in  human  nature, 
declare  that  as  the  end  of  government  is  the  good  of  the 
people,  so  its  sanction  resides  in  their  love  and  content. 
This  is  its  test.  Their  voice  is  sought  on  all  momentous 
occasions,  in  all  high  penalty  for  crime  ;  the  sovereign  is 


374  STRUCTURES. 

corrected  by  their  sense  of  right,  their  murmurs  of  dissent ; 
officers  who  are  expelled  by  them  for  oppressive  conduct 
are  put  to  death  by  the  law  for  that  cause  alone.1  The 
secret  is  told,  not  only  in  the  continued  changes  of  dynasty 
by  popular  revolt,  but  by  the  great  amount  of  positive  self- 
government  organized  and  constant  in  social  life,  —  in  the 
village  communities,  the  local  trade-unions  and  clubs  for 
discussion,  the  institution  of  the  censorate,  and  the  freedom 
of  appeal,  in  all  cases  of  importance,  to  the  highest  court  in 
the  land. 

The  two  conceptions  of  government,  as  democratic  re- 
sponsibility and  providential  care,  are  reconciled  in  this 
obviously  imperfect  way.  The  people  having  naturally 
right  and  power  of  self-government  are  incapable  of  exer- 
cising it ;  do  not  know  how  to  govern  themselves,  but  do 
know  when  they  are  well  governed  ;  do  know  when  the 
functions  they  leave  to  their  best  men  for  fulfilment  are 
well  fulfilled.  Hence  their  condition,  as  tranquil  or  dis- 
contented, is  the  constant  burden  of  royal  proclamation 
and  official  charge.  Unsatisfactory  to  us.  Yet  it  is  plain 
that  no  government  devised  for  enslaving  the  people  would 
thoroughly  and  constantly  proclaim  its  responsibility  to 
them,  —  although  this  might  be  done,  as  in  France,  by  a 
single  ambitious  and  short-lived  dynasty  for  momentary 
effect ;  nor  would  it  keep  the  path  of  advancement  wide 
open  to  free  competition  ;  nor  preach  the  right  of  revolu- 
tion at  the  corners  of  the  streets,  and  tyrannicide  in  the 
text-books  of  the  schools  ;  nor  submit  to  an  institution  like 
the  censorship  ;  nor  make  its  courts  free  to  the  appeal  of 
the  humblest  person  ;  nor  secure  the  best  education  the 
land  affords  to  every  one  in  the  community  who  can  afford 
time  and  means  to  pursue  it.  Obviously  our  Western  ideas 
of  bureaucracy,  as  a  rule  imposed  on  the  people,  and  our 
objections  to  a  paternal  government,  are  not  easily  applied 

1  Penal  Code,  CCX. 


GOVERNMENT.  375 

to  a  nation  in  whose  heart  the  ideas  of  service  and  sway 
are  so  fully  reconciled  as  in  China.  And,  if  we  would  give 
them  the  benefit  of  our  forward  look  and  free  aspiration, 
we  must  recognize  the  reverence  with  which  they  clothe 
the  idea  of  government  as  the  rule  of  the  best,  aware  that 
nothing  short  of  an  homage  to  this  eternal  truth  equal  to 
their  own  can  make  us  fit  to  become  their  teachers. 

These  remarks  are  as  applicable  at  the  present  as  at 
any  previous  period.  The  Man-chus,  though  mas- 
ters of  China  by  conquest,  are  pupils  of  her  civil-  Manchu 
ization,  and  fully  acquainted  with  all  its  qualities.  rulers' 
Their  preparation  for  ruling  the  empire  has  not  been 
unworthy  of  the  function.  The  Tsing  has  effected  more 
than  any  previous  dynasty,  not  only  in  organizing  the 
State,  but  even  in  giving  force  to  the  traditional  principles 
on  which  its  institutions  rest.  The  writings  of  Confucius 
have  been  the  common  culture  of  both  races.  Any  collec- 
tion of  Man-chu  proverbs  will  be  found  very  largely  made 
up  of  his  sayings.1  For  delicacy  and  humanity  as  well  as 
for  close  treatment  of  real  life,  even  the  original  portions 
of  such  a  collection  will  compare  favorably  with  Chinese 
anthologies.  The  closest  resemblance  will  be  found  in 
prudential  and  political  maxims. 

The  Administration  of  the  Empire  2  is  no  artificial  struc- 
ture, but  has  grown  out  of  the  demands  of  a  vast 

&  .  The  Impe- 

civilization,  for  ages  bent  on   utilizing  all  its  re-  rial  Admin- 
sources  for  the  common   good,  and  working  with  1S 
remarkable  unity  to  that  end.     Just  as  its  written  language 

1  See  especially  Rochet,  Sentences  Mantchoux  (Paris,  1875),  extracts  from  which  will  be 
found  further  on;  also  Wollheim,  Die  National  Liter  atur  der  Volker  des  Orients 
(pp.  663,  664). 

2  Fully  given  in  the  Ta-tsing-Hwui-Tien,  (64  vols.  roy.  octavo),  the  Manchu  Blue- 
~Book,  which  occupied  the  Han-lin  from  twenty  to  thirty  years  in  preparation  ;  it  contains 
minute  descriptions  of  every  department  in  forty-eight  chapters.  See  Chin.  Refos.,  Jan.  1843, 
and  Aug.  1835.  Also  Martin's  China,  I.  125;  F r an ck,  .£/«*/<?$  Orientales,  p.  148;  La  Chine 
Ouverte,  pp.  34S~354- 


376  STRUCTURES. 

has  been  made  a  bond  of  union  for  three  hundred  millions 
of  people,  and  its  educational  system  binds  the  remotest 
district  to  the  capital  by  a  common  interest  of  the  closest 
kind,  so  the  same  centripetal  force  of  the  race  has  organ- 
ized its  various  social  interests  in  a  central  administration 
which  has  retained  the  same  leading  features  since  its  ear- 
liest days. 

Thus  the  present  Imperial  Councils,  cabinet  and  general, 
Con-e-  correspond  to  the  consultations  held  by  the  early 
sponding  kings  with  their  wisest  men,  and  with  the  chiefs 

to  the  older  & 

regime.  of  tribes  or  States.  The  Cabinet  (Nui-Koli)  pre- 
pares opinions  for  the  Emperor's  judgment,  its  assistants 
being  connected  with  the  Board  of  Rites.  The  General 
Council  (Kiun-chi-Chii)  comprises  a  large  number  of  high 
personages,  princes,  chiefs  of  boards  and  courts,  with 
other  officials,  selected  by  the  throne.  Its  general  func- 
tion is  distributive,  and  includes  issuing  imperial  edicts, 
regulating  examinations  and  other  national  procedures, 
translating  documents  for  general  reading,  and  directing 
the  affairs  of  Mongolia  and  Thibet. 

The  Six  Boards  (Luh-pu) a  of  Civil  Service,  Revenue, 
The  Rites,  War,  Punishment,  and  Public  Works  cor- 

Bureaus.  responc}  verv  nearly  to  the  Boards  of  the  Tcheou-li, 
and,  though  more  concentrated,  are  not  unlike  those  of  Yu 
in  the  Shu-king.  Their  natural  origin  in  social  needs  is 
indicated  by  the  saying,  "  The  Ly-pu  is  to  govern  the  peo- 
ple, the  Hu-pu  to  support  them,  — the  Li-pu  to  guide ;  the 
Ping-pu  to  protect ;  the  Kong-pu  to  give  them  security  and 
repose." 

These  Boards  are  aided  by  a  Colonial  Office,  a  College 
of  Censors,  a  Court  of  Revisions  in  capital  cases,  a  Court 
of  Petitions,  and  an  Imperial  Academy.  There  are  also 
Boards  of  Inspection  for  granaries,  and  for  transports  of 
government  stores  of  salt,  corn,  and  customs. 

1  Called  also  Luh-fang  (the  six  rooms),  a  familiar  term  for  the  administration. 


GOVERNMENT.  377 

The  College  of  Censors  has  six  classes  attached  to  the 
six  Boards  to  supervise  their  action  ;  it  takes  part  in 
reviewing  all  criminal  cases  coming  up  from  the  prov- 
inces, and  in  directing  the  police  of  the  capital.1  A  still 
more  important  function  is  to  reprove  and  admonish  the 
Emperor,  of  course  with  proper  discretion  and  respect. 

The  Court  of  Requests  receives  memorials,  and  trans- 
mits appeals  made  through  the  drum  of  justice  at  the 
palace  gate  directly  to  the  throne. 

The  Han-lin,  or  Royal  Academy  of  Scholars,  has  been 
elsewhere  described. 

To  the  early  feudal  States  correspond  divisions  for  ad- 
ministrative purposes  into  provinces,  departments,  The 
and  cantons,  whose  subdivisions  have  their  walled  Provinces, 
towns  of  similar  names  to  their  own  ;  and  these  divisions 
are  directed  respectively  by  viceroys,  governors,  prefects, 
and  sub-prefects,  with  treasurers,  judges,  and  a  great  num- 
ber of  subordinate  officials,  whose  functions  are  too  com- 
plex to  be  here  described.  By  official  espionage  from 
above  and  from  below,  by  registration  of  all  important 
facts,  by  transmission  of  every  detail  to  the  central 
bureaus,  by  reports,  expected  from  all,  of  their  own  do- 
ings and  misdoings,  the  administration  of  provincial  affairs 
becomes,  theoretically,  known  to  the  Emperor,  as  fount  of 
justice  and  source  of  reform.  The  official  list  is  filled 
from  the  records  of  competitive  examinations  by  the  Board 
of  Rites  ;  and  the  control  of  foreign  trade  in  the  great  port 
of  Canton  has  been  maintained  until  recently,  by  holding  a 
company  of  merchants  (Co-hong)  responsible  for  the  col- 
lection of  duties  to  the  higher  government  officials. 

The  mandarin2  holds  his  court  as  judge,  jury,  and  bar, 

1  See  Williams,  I.  338. 

2  The  name  "mandarin"  is  probably  derived  from  the  Sanskrit  "  mantran"  (counsellor), 
from  mantra  (wisdom)  ( Schott).     Or  perhaps,  proximately,  from  the  Portuguese  mandar  (to 
Command).     The  Chinese  name  for  a  judge  is  kwan. 


378  STRUCTURES. 

in  imitation  of  the  imperial  rule,  though  under  account- 
Mandarin  ability  in  both  directions  to  the  government  and 
courts.  tne  pe0pie>  His  court-house  (Ya-mun)  is  de- 
scribed as  a  rambling  fortress,  garrisoned  by  officials,  clerks, 
free  agents,  and  purveyors  to  his  interest,  and  police.  The 
regular  procedure  is,  however,  without  fee  ;  and  rich  and 
poor  alike  may  prosecute  their  cause,  enter  protest  against 
unjust  sentence,  and  carry  their  appeal  to  higher  courts. 

The  number  of  official  persons,  of  importance  sufficient 
to  be  subjects  of  enumeration,  amounted  in  1845  to 
20,000,  with  a  proportion  of  one  in  five  or  six  of  the  Tar- 
tar race.1 

How  does  this  vast  regime  of  officialism  work  in  practice  ? 
Staunton  says  that,  "for  the  repression  of  disorder  in  a 
Practical  vast  population,  the  Chinese  laws  are  in  general 


working  of    equally  mild  an(i  efficacious  ;  and  that  he  traced 

these  insti- 

tutions. almost  universally  the  signs  of  a  thriving  and  con- 
tented people  ;  "  among  whom  "  flagrant  and  repeated  acts 
of  injustice  in  any  rank  or  station  do  not  often  escape  with 
impunity."  2  Testimony  to  the  same  effect  is  given  by 
Testimo  Davis,  Ellis,  Meadows,  Speer.  Williams  says  that 
meson  the  the  Chinese  race  has  perhaps  risen  as  high  as  is 

iect'  possible  in  the  two  great  objects  of  government,  — 
security  of  life  and  property  to  the  governed,  and  free- 
dom of  action  under  restraints  of  law.3  Wuttke  thinks 
"  the  humanity  of  the  laws  shames  much  of  Christian  legis- 
lation." 4  Neither  of  these  writers  is  elsewhere  disposed  to 
be  partial  to  Chinese  character  or  institutions.  Their 
accounts  fully  correspond  with  that  of  the  Arab  travellers 
in  the  ninth  century. 

The  entertaining  Jesuit,  Lecomte,  who  spent  ten  years 
in  China  nearly  two  centuries  ago,  is  enthusiastic  over  the 

1  See  Brine.  2  Introd.  to  Pen.  Code.  3  Letter  quoted  by  Speer,  p.  533. 

*  Wuttke,  II.  iSr. 


GOVERNMENT.  379 

road-making  energies  of  the  officials,  the  good  regulation 
of  posts  and  couriers,  the  mode  of  collecting  revenues,  the 
small  number  of  officials  compared  with  France  in  that 
day,  the  careful  registration  of  families  and  estates,  and 
the  good  order  of  the  people  in  spite  of  civil  and  foreign 


wars. 


If,  notwithstanding  the  frequency  of  civil  wars,  dynastic 
overturns,  popular  commotions,  barbarities  arising  ComPara- 
from  panic,  and  cruelties  by  unjust  officials,  the  tive°-uality 

i     '  f    of  Chinese 

testimony  of  travellers  as  to  the  general  state  of  political 
society  in  China  is  still  similar  to  the  above,  history- 
—  though  the  last  century  has  been  rife  in  demoralizing 
influences  from  abroad,  —  there  must  be  much  inherent 
excellence  in  the  established  order  of  things.  The  sad  pic- 
ture of  dynastic  revolutions,  imperial  intrigues,  and  deaths 
by  violence,  which  may  be  studied  in  Duhalde  and  De 
Mailla,  Meadows  and  Martin,  and  even  in  the  Trimetrical 
Classic  of  the  Chinese  schools,  could  after  all  be  easily 
paralleled  or  even  surpassed  by  a  true  account  of  almost 
any  European,  monarchy  during  the  last  thousand  years. 
Probably  no  nation  has  made  more  strenuous  endeavors 
to  restrain  official  abuses.  There  are  imperfections  inhe- 
rent in  all  devices  for  securing  justice  between  men,  and 
our  boasted  jury  system  is  perhaps  as  far  from  immaculate 
as  the  Chinese  mandarin  court ;  the  point  of  moment  is 
not  the  form  of  procedure,  but  the  animus  of  the  public 
opinion  which  it  represents.  Doubtless  the  best  form  for 
a  right-willing  community  is  the  primitive  and  natural 
resort  to  chosen  referees.  In  China,  fear  of  the  people, 
who  keep  well  informed  as  to  the  laws,  exerts  perhaps  as 
potent  an  influence  for  good  as  the  very  imperfect  public 
sentiment  which  we  bring  to  bear  on  our  own  courts  of 
justice,  and  which  makes  the  worth  or  the  worthlessness 
of  our  special  laws. 

1  Lecomte's  China,  pp.  304-311. 


380  STRUCTURES. 

The  Chinese  have  taken  ample  precaution  against  pun- 
Precau-  ishing  innocent  persons,  especially  in  capital  cases. 
against  in-  Three  superior  courts  unite  with  the  Board  of  Cen- 
justice.  sors  to  form  a  Court  of  Revision,  and  the  cases  are 
then  sent  up  to  the  throne.  The  decisions  of  provincial 
courts  of  appeal  are  re-examined,  and  the  Peking  "  Gazette  " 
abounds  in  cases  of  resort  to  the  censors  to  bar  injustice. 
The  statistics  of  capital  punishment  have  recently  shown 
an  average  of  five  hundred  cases  a  year  in  an  empire  of 
three  hundred  millions,  which  is  one  in  six  hundred  thou- 
sand, equivalent  to  two  a  year  in  the  State  of  Massachu- 
setts ;  a  small  ratio  compared  with  those  of  many  epochs 
in  our  own  history.  Under  the  great  Emperors  who  have 
fairly  executed  the  laws,  population  has  enormously  in- 
creased ;  a  fact  which  has  its  significance  in  relation  to 
the  adequacy  of  these  laws  for  public  security  and  comfort. 

This  may  be  the  place  to  ask  how  far  the  responsibilities 
imperial  theoretically  laid  on  the  Emperor,  as  the  people's 
howCfui  Father,  have  been  practically  met  ?  The  foremost 
mied.  of  these,  in  the  concrete  logic  of  the  .Chinese,  is  to 
see  that  the  people  are  supplied  with  food.  This  duty  is 
the  more  emphasized  since  the  population  has  become  so 
vast,  but  it  is  natural  enough  to  an  agricultural  race.  The 
location  of  public  granaries,  from  the  earliest  times, 

Granaries. 

is  in  no  sense  an  expedient  of  despotism  to  keep 
the  people  quiet,  as  some  have  believed : :  ease  from  self- 
supporting  labor  is  the  last  thing  a  Chinese  government 
would  think  of  or  desire  for  the  people.  It  is  only  in  times 
of  distress,  and  by  violation  of  the  whole  system,  that  "  the 
provinces  are  drained  so  that  Pe-king  may  be  full."  The 
granary  belongs  to  the  idea  of  imperial  care,  as  it  has  al- 
ways done,  whether  in  Egypt,  Rome,  or  Peru.2 

In  all  times  maintained  as  a  vital  part  of  imperial  duty, 
granaries  greatly  increased  in  numbers  during  the  native 

1  Morache,  p.  50.  2  See  Prescott,  I.  57. 


GOVERNMENT.  381 

Ming  dynasty.  Provided  on  the  frontiers  for  troops,  and 
in  the  large  cities  against  times  of  scarcity,  their  supplies 
are  used  for  sacrifices,  for  the  poor,  for  imperial  wants,  and 
the  pay  of  officials  ;  and  they  make  it  possible  to  apportion 
taxation  to  the  actual  state  of  crops.  As  a  balance-wheel 
for  the  mechanism  of  an  agricultural  State,  they  have  vir- 
tues which  China  has  never  failed  to  appreciate. 

The  Emperor  of  China  is  never  suffered  to  forget  that, 
as  Frederic  the  Great  said  of  himself,  he  is  the  charge  of 
"  procurator  of  the  poor."  Besides  his  govern-  the  p°or- 
mental  pawning-houses,  poor-houses,  homes  for  aged  per- 
sons and  vagrants,  and  the  great  drum  of  appeal  for  wronged 
parties  at  his  palace  gate,  he  has  always  been  held  to  ren- 
der homage  and  help  to  labor  by  rites  to  the  gods  of  the 
land,  by  symbolic  assumption  of  the  plough  in  the  name  of 
his  people,  by  issuing  the  annual  calendar  for  the  farmer's 
guidance,  and  by  providing  for  irrigation  on  a  vast  scale  to 
facilitate  the  free  labors  of  millions  in  a  spirit  far  more 
democratic  than  that  of  those  "  Hamite  "  civilizations  which 
covered  the  plains  of  Mesopotamia  with  canals  constructed 
by  slaves.  Private  petition  is,  theoretically  at  least,  free  ; 
and  an  entry  in  the  Peking  "  Gazette  "  shows  that  the  cen- 
sors have  to  this  day  no  legal  right  to  intercept  such  direct 
appeal  when  made  under  proper  forms.1 

The  vices  of  Chinese  administration2  proceed  from  per- 
versions inherent  in  the  practical  working  of  the  Defects 
providential  theory  of  government.    The  Emperor's  arisins 
responsibility  for  the  moral  and  physical  well-being  »rpr0vj. 
of  his  people  is  repeated  in  that  of  the  mandarin  dential" 

£  i  i-    •  f  -  il     «•  theory  of 

for  the  condition  of  the  community  under  his  spe-  govern- 
cial  charge,  as  well  as  for  the  conduct  of  his  subor-  ment> 
dinates.     The  State  is   thus   an  embodiment  of  vicarious 
atonement,  and  justice  an  officialism  in  which  every  holder 

1  September  15,  1874. 

1  Compare  Peruvian  Laws,  Prescott,  I.  42.     See  also  Meadows,  p.  170;  Williams,  I. 
378-38i. 


STRUCTURES. 

is  responsible  to  the  law  for  the  sins  of  other  men.  The 
principle  pervades  Chinese  legislation,  and  its  presence  in  all 
ancient  law  codes  and  positive  religions  generally,  ancient 
and  modern,  demands  explanation. 

The  basis  of  vicarious  atonement  as  a  dogma  is  partly  in 
idea  of  tne  instinctive  ardor  of  sympathy  which  would  re- 
vkarious  move  penalty  from  others  by  sharing  or  assuming 

atonement.    .,  1-1 

it ;  partly  in  observation,  even  at  the  early  stages 
of  social  progress,  of  the  law  of  moral  solidarity,  by  which 
each  person  does  in  fact  become  sharer  in  the  common  des- 
tiny, and  really  bears  the  burden,  in  one  or  another  way,  of 
all  the  vice  and  misery  in  the  world ;  and  partly  in  con- 
necting this  law  with  official  function  as  an  element  of 
historical  providence :  thus  making  the  supposed  divinely 
appointed  saviours  and  guardians  of  men  suffer  with  the 
enemies  of  their  work,  even  if  they  are  not  punished  in 
their  stead.  But  such  official  function,  again,  is  the  ready 
device  for  reconciling  the  vast  amount  of  unpunished  or 
unpunishable  wrong-doing  in  society  with  the  crude  idea  of 
justice,  as  a  strict  commercial  squaring  of  accounts  with  the 
highest  ownership.  And  this  plainly  sets  aside  the  other, 
or  sympathetic  motive  ;  whereas  nothing  can  be  more  vital 
than  sympathy  to  all  real  and  practical  justice.  When  this 
unhappy  divorce  is  widened  by  ascribing  individual  will  to 
the  highest  appointing  and  retributive  Power,  the  tracks 
are  well  laid  for  the  extreme  of  injustice  in  the  name  and 
pursuit  of  justice.  The  official  function  of  "saving  men" 
becomes  a  form  of  responsibility  which  denies  the  very 
essence  of  morality,  organizing  a  legal  accountability  in  the 
good  man,  not  to  his  own  conscience,  but  to  a  want  of  con- 
science in  all  other  men ;  and  as  its  corollary  a  right  in  each 
of  these  of  shifting  upon  another  the  penalty  for  his  own 
sins,  personal  or  imputed. 

These  vices,'  which  most  modern  civilizations  in  great 
measure  confine  to  the  realm  of  their  theological  ideal,  ap- 


GOVERNMENT.  383 

plying  a  wholly  different  rule  to  their  practical  affairs,  are 
organized  by  the  Chinese,  without  theology,  into  positive 
secular  laws  and  penalties  ;  thus,  in  this  matter,  enlisting 
freedom  of  will  and  strength  of  desire  against  that  morality 
which  in  other  respects  is  their  manifest  aim.  It  is  a  ter- 
rible violation  of  the  rights  of  the  person  ;  and  though  it  is 
a  natural  deduction  from  their  premises  that,  if  virtue  and 
vice  in  a  ruler  inevitably  produce  their  like  in  his  people, 
then  the  conduct  of  the  latter  is  the  direct  consequence 
and  sign  of  his  character,  yet  it  would  seem  scarcely  credi- 
ble that  even  the  Chinese  should  so  confound  abstract  logic 
with  concrete  experience  as  to  organize  such  a  conclusion 
in  the  physical  force  of  the  State.  Yet  so  it  is,  and  the 
consequences  are  noteworthy. 

There  are  at  first  sight  certain  apparent  advantages  in 
punishing  the  mandarin  for  the  undetected  crimes 

Its  results. 

committed  in  his  jurisdiction.  It  is  of  course  much 
easier  than  to  investigate  them.  It  leads  to  extreme  efforts 
on  his  part  to  suppress  offences.  But  since  this  is  more 
difficult  than  to  compound  for  them,  the  more  common 
effect  is  concealment  by  collusion  or  for  bribes,  and  the 
punishment  of  the  innocent,  either  by  outrage  or  by  the 
singular  custom  of  self-substitution  for  a  price,  —  natural 
enough  under  a  system  of  vicarious  atonement.  This  cus- 
tom, aggravated  by  the  poverty  of  large  classes,  is  a  start- 
ling sign  of  the  demoralizing  effect  of  the  system  on  general 
manners.  Moreover,  the  people,  made  responsible  for  each 
other,  become  afraid  to  prosecute  justice. 

All  this  seems  incredibly  blind  and  barbarous.  Yet  it  is 
doubtless  only  the  imperfection  of  our  sciences  of  Anaiogies 
heredity  and  psychological  influence  that  prevents  in  Chris- 

.        .    .        tendom. 

us  from  seeing  that  we  ourselves  have  organized  in 
our  legal  processes  the  punishment  of  the  innocent  for  the 
guilty  on  a  prodigious  scale ;  holding  poverty  and  ignorance 
responsible  for  crimes  due  mainly  to  the  skilled  tyrannies 


384  STRUCTURES. 

and  robberies  of  competitive  trade,  and  seeking  to  extirpate 
vices  like  intemperance,  propagated  from  generation  to 
generation  or  enforced  by  the  habits  of  society,  by  chas- 
tisement of  those  who  are  only  their  victims  or  their  results. 

Minute  mutual  espionage  is  another  degrading  trick  of 
The  spy  these  pedagogic  disciplines,  fruitful  of  falsehood  and 
system.  corruption.  De  Courcy  says  that  "  to  escape  the 
tremendous  power  of  this  spy  system  a  common  under- 
standing seems  to  have  been  made  to  permit  every  form  of 
abuse."  Yet  we  must  beware  of  reasoning  too  closely  from 
the  analogy  of  our  own  habits  of  self-government  to  the 
effects  of  what  is  here  but  a  kind  of  monitorial  system  in 
an  immense  school.  'Tis  a  people  who  can,  with  simplicity 
of  heart,  accept  the  rule  that  a  list  of  the  merits  and  de- 
merits of  all  officers  in  the  Empire  shall  be  triennially 
submitted  to  the  inspection  of  their  great  school-master, 
prepared  from  the  mixed  confessions  and  talebearings  of 
these  ushers  themselves !  Espionage  is  in  the  East  a  recog- 
nized means  of  national  consolidation.  That  huge  heap  of 
discordant  atoms  —  the  Persian  Empire  of  Darius  —  was 
brought  to  unity  in  great  part  through  official  spies,  called 
the  "  royal  eyes  and  ears."  And  in  Japan,  where  every  one 
is  liable  for  the  good  conduct  of  some  class  of  persons,  and 
every  office  is  held  by  two  mutual  inspectors,  the  system 
passes  for  the  "  safeguard  of  the  people,"  and  travellers 
speak  of  it  as  "  an  important  check  on  misconduct."  1 

It  is  a  tendency  of  civilization  to  subject  the  individual 
life  to  an  ever-increasing  inspection  and  control.  Whatever 
be  the  power  which  assumes  guardianship  of  the  community, 
as  soon  as  it  gets  well  organized,  it  will,  if  not  self-restrained 
by  a  respect  for  personality,  of  which  only  a  small  minority 
of  men  are  capable,  become  an  intrusive  supervision,  tend- 
ing to  terrorism,  and  practically  constituting  a  kind  of 
public  black-mail.  Its  democratic  form  is  probably  more 

1  Japanese  Fragments,  p.  22  ;   Pumpelly,  p.  117. 


GOVERNMENT.  385 

invasive  and  exacting  than  any  other  can  be.  We  may  fancy 
we  have  escaped  it,  since  we  do  not  admit  the  right  of 
government  to  supervise  the  whole  conduct  of  life,  and  are 
far  from  respecting  the  spy  in  any  form.  But  were  we  not 
lately  dealing  with  the  question  of  employing  feed  govern- 
ment spies  in  the  revenue  service  as  a  necessary  guard 
against  our  own  officials  ?  Is  it  probable  that  a  Chinese 
mandarin  was  ever  more  keenly  watched  by  subordinates 
for  flaws  in  his  conduct  than  the  American  official  is  tracked 
even  by  members  of  his  own  political  party,  who  desire  his 
removal  (not  to  speak  of  "  the  outs  "),  and  who  may  use 
Congressional  influence  for  their  purposes  ?  But,  beyond 
these  obvious  forms  of  supervision,  there  is  a  deeper  and 
more  general  kind.  We,  who  reject  bureaucratic  govern- 
ment, find  ourselves  accepting  the  autocracy  of  public 
opinion,  or  the  majority's  right  by  divine  sanction  to  deal 
with  us  as  it  will.  This  republican  pedagogy  has  become 
as  thoroughly  organized  in  the  power  of  the  free  press  as 
the  Chinese  is  in  imperial  espionage.  And  we  are  endur- 
ing the  result  in  a  supervision  of  private  affairs  by  the 
correspondent  and  the  interviewer,  in  the  name  of  public 
rights,  which  recognizes  no  personal  reserves,  no  life  apart 
from  inspection,  no  domestic  sorrow  nor  sensitive  wound 
sacred  from  the  public  eye. 

Excessive  supervision  will  never  purify  the  morals  nor  re- 
fine the  sentiments  of  a  people.  Its  very  motive  demoral- 
izes and  counteracts  its  ostensible  aim.  In  China,  it  does 
not  appear  to  have  protected  the  sea  from  pirates,  nor  the 
land  from  revolt  ;  and  troops  of  wandering  robbers  have 
always  infested  the  outlying  provinces.  It  does  not  repress 
beggary,  which  is  rampant  in  the  cities,  nor  abolish  the 
trickeries  of  trade.  Probably  on  the  whole  it  tends  to  in- 
crease these  evils,  though  its  influence  is  in  large  measure 
neutralized  by  the  general  character  and  habits  of  the  peo- 
ple. Everywhere  alike  it  illustrates  the  failure  of  organi- 

25 


386  STRUCTURES. 

zation  to  do  the  work  of  personal  culture  and  of  private 
aspirations  to  moral  and  intellectual  freedom.  Yet  it  is 
difficult,  in  the  face  of  the  vast  data  on  which  Chinese 
civilization  rests,  to  believe,  with  Mr.  Hart,  that  the  whole 
civil  and  military  administration  is  founded  on  a  lie.1  No 
such  age  is  to  be  found  in  Chinese  history  as  that  of  Eng- 
land in  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  when  the  statesmen 
were  almost  universally  gross  and  immoral  in  speech  and 
life,  and  the  people  ignorant,  brutal,  and  uncared  for  to  an 
extent  now  inconceivable.  Of  popular  representation,  it  is 
sufficient  to  say  that  jobbers  returned  at  that  time  all  the 
borough  members  of  Parliament,  and  only  160,000  out  of 
eight  millions  were  electors,  while  the  king  bought  and 
ruled  the  members  at  his  will.2 

The  multiplicity  of  functions  filled  by  a  single  prefect  or 
Mixed  judge  is  another  source  of  official  malversation  in 
Functions,  china.  This  too  arises  from  the  greater  ease  with 
which  a  central  "  providence "  can  be  brought  to  bear  on 
provincial  administration  through  one  functionary  than 
through  divided  powers.  With  all  their  organizing  faculty, 
the  Chinese  have  not  learned  the  importance  of  separating 
the  various  branches  of  administration.  The  district  mag- 
istrate unites  judicial,  political,  fiscal  powers.3  De  Mas 
says  that  when  he  visited  Shang-hai  there  were  only  the 
mayor  and  two  other  mandarins,  who  yet  employed  two  or 
three  hundred  subordinates.4  The  mandarin  is  supposed 
to  be  competent  to  all  kinds  of  affairs  ;  so  that,  after  all,  the 
great  educational  principle  of  fitness  for  functions  has  in 
this  respect  serious  detriment,  and  the  mischievous  results 
of  false  positions  ensue. 

For  this  evil,  also,  our  opposite  form  of  government  has 
its  analogue,  in  the  propensity  of  majorities  to  heap  their 


1  Quoted  in  Hubner,  pp.  642,  643,  from  his  Memorandum  to  the  Emperor. 

8  See  Green,  English  History,  pp.  717,  744. 

3  Meadows,  p.  79.  *  De  Mas,  II.  36. 


GOVERNMENT.  387 

admirations  ;  to  believe  that  a  great  leader  in  one  sphere 
must  needs  be  equally  great  in  all  ;  to  force  now  one  de- 
partment, now  another,  to  intrench  on  the  independence 
of  its  coequals ;  to  disregard  special  fitness,  for  the  sake  of 
personal  or  party  interests,  and  to  expect  every  man  to 
serve  these  in  any  capacity  at  a  moment's  notice.  Political 
checks  and  balances  are  well  provided  in  the  division  of  our 
public  departments  ;  but  the  fully  organized  public  will 
overbears  such  political  precautions,  because  it,  and  not 
political  government,  is  the  American  "  providence." 

Other  vices  of  Chinese  administration  much  dwelt  on 
are  the  assumption  of  illegal  powers  by  magistrates,  other  de- 
or  by  legates  who  are  sometimes  likened,  though  fects- 
not  very  correctly,  to  Persian  satraps  ; l  forgery  of  edicts, 
which  cannot  be  frequent,  the  penalty  being  death  ;  ill  pay 
of  officials,  resulting  from  bad  times  or  public  poverty,  and 
offset  by  extortions  ;  imperial  interference  with  the  course 
of  justice,  since  there  is  naturally  some  margin  for  caprice  ; 
influence  of  cabals  by  eunuchs  or  others  in  the  royal  house- 
hold ;  above  all,  the  sale  of  offices,  at  last  become  a  regular 
method  of  replenishing  the  State  treasury  in  hard  times. 
But  this  violation  of  the  competitive  system  of  examina- 
tions is  too  unpopular  to  be  suffered  to  go  far,  and  is  never 
without  open  protest  from  the  censors  and  the  regular 
graduates.  Special  examinations  have  been  held  for  the 
purpose  of  weeding  out  incompetent  officials  who  have 
purchased  their  posts  ;  and  it  is  proposed  to  make  these 
tests  universal.2 

The  amount  of  petty  torture  in  daily  use  in  the  police 
courts  is  probably  considerable  ;  and  the  condition  of  pris- 
ons, if  we  may  trust  common  report,  could  not  well  be 
worse  than  it  is.3  Instances  of  arbitrary  cruelty  by  jailers 


1  Williams,  I.  351. 

1  Peking  Gazette,  June  21  and  October  15,  1874. 

•  Williams,  I.  pp.  409-416;  Hiibner,  p.  595. 


STRUCTURES. 

and  judges  1  are  naturally  not  uncommon  where  a  stick  is 
the  appropriate  symbol  of  government.  The  arbitrary  nat- 
ure of  criminal  administration  where  the  same  person  is 
judge  and  jury  is  sufficiently  obvious,  even  without  the 
testimony  of  the  whole  body  of  Chinese  romance  and  drama, 
so  far  as  it  has  been  brought  before  the  Western  public. 
Yet  the  keenness  of  these  functionaries  in  the  perception 
of  truth  and  falsehood  in  witnesses  is  said  to  be  remark- 
able.2 

Notwithstanding  these  abuses  and  defects,  even  as  in- 
tensified by  the  present  epoch  of  transition  and  demorali- 
zation, there  are,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  no  grounds  for  ex- 
pecting the  dissolution  of  the  Empire,  or  any  profound 
revolution  in  its  forms. 

The  permanence  of  Chinese  institutions  is  due  to  their 

growth  out  of  the  unimpeded  genius  of  the  people, 
the  Per-  They  are  not  the  product  of  conquest,  like  the  abso- 
ofThe CC  ^ute  monarcny  °f  Persia,  or  the  Kshatriya  kingdoms 
Chinese  of  India ;  nor  subject  to  continual  change  by  the 

influx  of  foreign  races,  like  the  Roman  State.  They 
are  a  form  of  the  permanence  of  race  qualities.  So  strong 
has  been  their  centripetal  force,  so  vital  their  hold  on  the 
patriarchal  ideal  in  its  concrete  unity  as  State,  that  no 
amount  of  local  diversity,  in  the  tribes  and  regions  com- 
prised in  this  colossal  country,  has  thus  far  been  able  to 
sunder  the  bond  of  nationality.  It  has  withstood  tremen- 
dous internal  conflicts,  and  endured  the  yoke  of  foreign 
masters  only  to  absorb  them  quietly  into  its  unity.  A  pri- 
mal gravitation,  stronger  than  any  causes  of  repulsion,  holds 
these  unique  tribes  gathered  about  a  common  patriarch, 
through  all  changes  of  experience.  Quite  as  powerful  is 
the  industrial  spirit  of  their  civilization.  The  aboriginal 
mountain  tribes  which  it  cannot  conquer  beat  in  vain 
against  its  calm,  organic  persistence,  —  rude  fragmentary 

1  Meadows,  Notes,  XIV. ;  Lecomte,  pp.  241-311.  *  Giles's  Sketches,  p.  85. 


GOVERNMENT.  389 

impulses  for  ever  flung  back  from  the  steadfast  economies 
of  social  law. 

Again  we  are  pointed  to  the  mysterious  secret  of  the 
history  of  the  Mongolic  Chinese  race  ;  its  absorption  in 
concrete  fact,  and  failure  to  extricate  the  idea  into  a  free- 
dom which  would  necessitate  change.  Government  is  an 
already  fulfilled  ideal ;  its  principles  identified  with  an  act- 
ual policy  never  to  be  dissolved. 

The  earnestness  of  this  faith  constitutes  it  a  religion ; 
and  its  history  casts  no  discredit  on  the  philosophy  that 
traces  enduring  things  to  the  good  and  not  the  evil  in  hu- 
man nature.  The  motive  forces  to  which  it  theoretically 
appeals  are  of  a  nature  to  insure  the  permanence  of  insti- 
tutions through  all  practical  collisions  which  might  seem  to 
contradict  their  theoretic  principles,  and  to  make  the  inces- 
sant assertion  of  them  almost  absurd.  It  is  the  only  key 
that  will  open  this  strangest  of  histories. 

i.  Materialistic  and  servile  as  it  may  be  imagined,  Chi- 
nese civilization  rests  on  the  systematic  preference  ItsMotive 
of  moral  to  physical  forces.     This  is  as  true  of  its   Forces, 
political  method  as  of  its  literary  culture.    Not  only  L  Moral 
are  local  rights  left  very  much  to  their  natural  in-  Suprem- 
fluence  over  the  popular  heart,  while  the  sense  of 
justice  is  gratified  by  freedom  of  appeal  to  the  central  au- 
thorities, but  government  itself  is  constantly  presented  in 
the  schools  as  resting  on  moral  sanctions,  the  military  arm 
subordinated  to  the  civil,  the  military  spirit  disciplined,  not 
to  say  systematically  repressed,  upon  grounds  of  conscience. 
The  duty  of  patient  endurance  of  evils,  and  the  virtue  of 
laborious  tasks  in  the  interest  of  order  and  unity,  are  the 
substance  of  a  national  gospel,  whose  restraining  influence 
on  the  passions  is  increased  by  a  natural  aversion  to  revolu- 
tion, or  even  to  that  private  self-dependence  which  is  so 
marked  a  trait  of  Teutonic  character.     The  "  Sacred  In- 


39°  STRUCTURES. 

structions  "  urge  upon  all  classes  mutual  interest,  counsel, 
instruction,  and  aid  —  the  spirit  of  civil  unity  and  social  har- 
mony—  with  a  directness  and  force  which  render  them, 
perhaps,  the  most  remarkable  document  of  royal  political 
teaching  in  human  history. 

The  symbols  to  which  the  people  bend  are  the  gong,  bell, 
and  wooden  axe  ;  not  the  Mongol  wolf,  nor  the  Teutonic 
bird  of  prey.  The  right  of  tyrannicide  being  at  the  same 
time  recognized,  the  conservative  values  of  order,  harmony, 
and  justice  are  the  more  strongly  felt. 

2.  A  second  source  of  permanence  is  the  industrial  econ- 
ii.  Indus-  omy  of  the  State.     No  land  is  permitted  to  lie  idle. 
tfy-  No  person  is  suffered  to  go  about  stirring  up  the 
unemployed  to  commit  disorders.     No  one  shall  keep  more 
land  than  he  can  keep  productively.     Large  estates  are 
thus  prevented,  and  the  national  stability  guaranteed  by 
hosts  of  small  land-owners,  busy  in  creating  their  own  bonds 
for  the  existing  order.     So  long  as  the  taxes  are  paid,  the 
farmer  is  undisturbed.     Such  an  act  as  the  expulsion  of 
whole  counties  of  Scottish  peasants  from  their  holdings, 
that  the  acres  might  be  converted  to  pasture,  would  not  be 
tolerated  in  China,  even  were  the  conditions  present  to 
make  it  possible.     One  who  improves  unoccupied  land  ac- 
quires thereby  a  title  in  it.1    Permanent  ownership  is  encour- 
aged by  the  right  of  emigrants  on  return  to  resume  their 
old  estates.     Nor  does  thirst  for  foreign  conquest  agitate 
this  busy  hive  of  productive  laborers. 

3.  The  educational  system  which  secures  the  State  the 
in  Edu-   seryice  °f  its  best  and  ablest  men  ;  the  union  of 
cation.       local  with  national*  interests  effected  by  competitive 
examinations  in  every  large  city  for  honors  proceeding  from 
the  capital ;  the  instruction  thus  given  the  people  in  polit- 

1  Chin.  Repos.,  November,  1849. 


GOVERNMENT.  39 1 

ical  knowledge,  and  in  the  conditions  of  public  security ; 
the  direction  of  private  ambition  into  this  current  rather 
than  into  habits  of  demagogical  appeal  or  pushing  for  place  ; 
the  dissemination  of  laws,  edicts,  and  exhortations,  often 
carved  in  marble  and  posted  in  the  streets,  —  are  all  forces 
of  permanence  and  unity. 

4.  To  these  we  may  add  respect  for  ties  of  family,  and 
even  homage  paid  them,  under  forms  common  to  IV  Re_ 
the  whole  empire;  enforcement  of  early  marriage  sPect £or 

.  the  Family. 

upon  all,  with  its  resulting  advantages  of  settled 
aims  and  duties ;  the  sober  routines,  the  well  compre- 
hended relations,  the  ancestral  works  and  ways  ;  and  that 
love  of  association  by  families,  neighborhoods,  crafts,  as 
well  as  for  public  duties,  that  marks  the  Chinaman  both  at 
home  and  abroad. 

5.  A  number  of  peculiar  expedients  for  maintaining  con- 
trol over  provincial  administration,  and  preserving  v>  Poli. 
unity  in  the  national  life,  have  become  constituent  des- 
parts  of  the  polity  of  the  Empire. 

Old  officers  are  called  to  Pe-king  to  serve  as  hostages  for 
the  good  behavior  of  their  sons  in  the  provincial  posts.1 
Nepotism  is  not  permitted,  nor  any  tie,  by  marriage  or 
property,  with  the  place  of  one's  official  residence.  The 
functionary  of  the  Empire  must  separate  himself  even  from 
his  birthplace.  The  centre  of  official  hope  is  thus  always 
Pe-king:  by  that  gate  of  imperial  inspection  each  must 
pass  to  the  place  of  his  dignity.  Official  posts  being  held 
but  for  short  periods,  the  frequency  of  transfer  keeps  atten- 
tion fixed  on  governmental  interests  rather  than  on  local 
opportunities. 

That  placemen  are  expected  to  confess  their  faults,  and 

1  See  Chin,  Kfjos.,  May,  1835,  pp.  70,  71  ;  Lecomte,  p.  278. 


392  STRUCTURES. 

severely  punished  if  detected  in  concealing  them,1  and  that 
every  public  personage  from  highest  to  lowest  is  under 
judgment  of  the  Board  of  Censors  may  at  least  be  sup- 
posed to  exert  a  restraining  influence  on  the  spirit  of  inno- 
vation.2 

The  "  Calendar,"  issued  by  the  Astronomical  Board,  pre- 
scribing uniformity  of  times  and  seasons  in  all  industrial 
or  ritual  matters  for  the  whole  nation,  identifies  these  com- 
mon activities  and  aims  with  the  regular  movement  of  the 
State,  as  with  pure  laws  of  Nature.3 

6.  Finally,  the  identity  of  religion  with  the  concrete  or- 
vi.  Re-  der  °f  things,  in  which  all  are  alike  interested  and 
ligious  urged  to  unity,  goes  far  toward  preventing  theo- 

Liberality.  .  -...,.  ... 

logical  controversy,  which  is  elsewhere  a  most  fruit- 
ful source  of  political  revolution.  Nowhere  is  religion  an 
outside  interest,  or  an  instituted  oppression.  There  is  no 
priestly  caste  nor  class,  no  symbolic  book,  no  enforced 
dogma ;  the  one  universal  cultus,  that  of  ancestors,  is  the 
dictate,  not  of  Church,  nor  of  State,  but  of  Nature. 


Such  are  some  of  the  elements  of  perpetuity  in  institu- 
tions  which  seem  in  the  main  to  repeat  themselves 
through  all  dynastic  and  civil  changes  in  the  history 
of  this  persistent  race  ;  not  less  wonderful,  certainly,  for 
their  adhesiveness,  though  to  thoroughly  naturalistic  paths, 
than  the  Jews  for  that  intense  self-concentration  which  has 
been  mistaken  by  themselves  and  others  for  supernatural 
guidance.  But,  after  all,  these  elements  have  not  proved  so 
effectual  as  might  be  expected  in  the  direction  of  internal 
unity  in  this  vast  population.  Its  cohesion  is  not  greater,  by 
the  testimony  of  history,  than  the  powerful  element  of  race, 

1  Williams,  I.  358,  368.  2  Duhalde,  I.  71,  270. 

8  See  Marco  Polo  (notes  to  Yule's  edit.),  B.  n.  xxxiii. 


GOVERNMENT.  393 

in  this  case  most  powerful,  would  require.  Numerous  and 
destructive  civil  wars,  and  the  very  short  epochs  in  her 
long  history  of  four  thousand  years  during  which  China  has 
been  united  in  a  single  empire,  make  us  almost  daubt 
whether  the  word  unity  can  properly  be  used  of  this  enor- 
mous number  of  beings  aggregated  by  the  force  of  race. 
Race  is  the  invincible  quality  which  impels  every  man  and 
woman  in  China  to  seek  organization  with  his  like  as  the 
breath  of  his  existence ;  which  teaches  every  one  to  revere 
patriarchal  rule,  as  the  ordainment  of  Heaven  for  the  gov- 
ernment of  men.  The  ideal  of  this  race  is  the  Family. 
For  their  vast  schemes  of  universal  empire,  whether  as 
sweep  of  Tartar  conquest,  or  serene  absolutism  of  Chinese 
polity,  the  logic  is  the  same  :  As  one  Father  for  the  Family, 
so  one  Ruler  for  the  World. 


III. 

LANGUAGE. 


III. 

LANGUAGE. 


LANGUAGE. 


TT  is  one  of  the  highest  achievements  of  modern  science 
-*-  to  have  rescued  Language  from  the  domain  of  Language 
theology,  and  traced  its  continuous  evolution  by  ^jon^o"" 
the  natural  faculties  of   man.     History,  however,  aninven- 
reminds  us  that  this  line  of  study  was  foreshad-  n         ' 


owed  by  Epicurus  and  his  school,  and  especially  srowth- 
by  Lucretius  ;  who  wholly  denied  that  speech  was  either 
a  special  invention  or  a  divine  communication,  and  indi- 
cated the  steps  of  its  gradual  birth  in  such  instinctive 
expressions  as  the  cries  of  animals  and  the  unconscious 
gestures  of  infants.  After  nearly  two  thousand  years  of 
supernaturalism,  we  are  brought  back  with  new  experi- 
ence to  this  old  trust  in  natural  laws. 

A  prolonged  depreciation  of  the  human  faculties  had 
resulted  in  the  last  century  in  two  extremes  of  theory  on 
the  subject.  One  of  these  was  expressed  in  the  phrase 
that  speech  was  too  amazing  a  product  to  have  been 
wrought  out  by  man's  "  unaided  powers."  The  other  pro- 
ceeded from  that  reaction  to  excessive  self-confidence, 
which,  especially  in  France,  felt  itself  raised  up  for  the 
reconstruction  of  the  world  by  immediate  human  forces  ; 
and  this  philosophy  of  patent  machinery  naturally  enough 
referred  language  to  the  genius  of  some  great  inventor. 
Both  the  miracle  and  the  mechanism  are  now  set  aside  for 
good  and  sufficient  reasons.  On  the  one  hand,  that  tran- 
sition of  inarticulate  tongue-gestures  into  distinct  words, 
in  which  language  begins,  no  more  needs  a  special  inven- 


39^  .  STRUCTURES. 

tor  than  the  organic  necessity  of  self-expression,  out  of 
which  these  primitive  movements  were  born.  And,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  theory  of  a  revelation  in  aid  of  the 
natural  faculties  breaks  down  on  the  fact  that  there  can  be 
no  revelation  except  the  manifestation  of  these  faculties 
themselves,  by  whose  stable  processes  alone  we  can  know 
or  act. 

Edkins,  a  zealous  Orientalist,  thinks  that  "  the  Biblical 
account  of  man's  naming  the  animals  proves  the  divine 
origin  of  language."  But  nomenclature  belongs  to  the 
sphere  of  scientific  research,  not  of  theological  dogma. 
The  truth  folded  in  that  Hebrew  legend  is  the  natural 
sovereignty  of  man  as  mind.  Human  intelligence  does,  in 
fact,  give  names  to  all  creatures  and  forms  by  its  own 
necessary  and  sovereign  laws  of  expression.  And  then 
science  analyzes  the  process,  thus  poetically  signified  as  a 
whole,  into  its  natural  stages. 

In  the  same  way  we  may  allow  the  theory  that  speech 
is  an  "invention,"  if  we  divest  it  of  individdal  meaning; 
since  humanity  everywhere  reaches  the  use  of  its  own 
powers  by  a  continuous  discovery,  which  is  of  the  nature 
of  creation.  This  theory,  therefore,  like  the  other,  attains 
an  imperfect  sense  of  the  spontaneity  of  spiritual  forces  as 
affirming  themselves  in  natural  law.  The  progress  of 
knowledge  consists  in  the  degrees  of  perception  that  the 
highest  of  these  forces  are  essential  to  the  evolution  of  all 
beneath  them,  the  whole  to  every  part. 

Behind  the  various  schemes  of  invention,  inspiration, 
its  psycho-  revelation,  evolution,  thus  pointing  to  a  common 
truth,  lies  the  fact  that  language  is  ultimately 
referable  to  the  necessary  unity  of  essence  with 
manifestation,  and  the  consequent  law  that  every  mental 
act  is  also  a  bodily  movement.  The  highest  law  of  the  uni- 
verse works  in  the  lowest  stages  of  growth.  What  has 
been  calle$  an  invention,  or  a  revelation,  is  in  fact  given 


LANGUAGE.  399 

in  the  very  existence  of  mind.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  nature  of  the  first  articulate  sounds,  they  belong  to  the 
same  organic  and  unconscious  stages  of  expression  with 
the  still  earlier  language  of  gesture  and  feature.  Vowels 
and  consonants  are  not  mere  products  of  analysis.  They 
must  have  been  instinctively  uttered  in  the  infancy  of  man, 
long  before  they  were  combined  into  positive  words.  The 
"  click  languages "  of  Southern  Africa  represent  a  still 
more  primitive  expression.  Through  all  such  stages  runs 
the  one  law  that  every  bodily  motion  is  the  reverse  side  of 
a  mental  act.  The  inscrutable  cosmic  law  of  mind  is  essen- 
tial to  the  growth  of  every  germ  of  speech. 

The  capability  of  such  primitive  atoms  of  expression  for 
development  into  conscious  methods    of   commu-  Gesture 
nicating  ideas  is  seen  in  the  great  ingenuity  of  and  feature 
deaf-mutes    in    holding   intercourse   by  means  of 
gestures  before  being  taught  to  converse  by  strict  system  ; 
and  in  the  preponderance  of  sign  language  in  the  eloquence 
of  savage  tribes.     Such  germs  of  speech,  whether  in  gest- 
ure, facial  change,  emphasis,  or  tone,  are  retained  through 
the  whole  course  of  human  progress,  and  form  important 
elements  in  the  highest  kinds  of  art. 

Language,  however,  in  its  technical  sense,  begins  in  the 
use  of  sounds  for  the  more  or  less  conscious  pur-  Mystery  of 
pose  of  being  understood.  It  is  an  ideal  attrac-  abeginili»g- 
tion.  It  involves  social  relations  ;  it  is  a  form  of  that 
profound  desire  of  communion  which  animates  all  human 
growth.  Here  again  we  are  thrown  back  on  a  remoteness 
so  far  beyond  recall,  that  Rousseau  might  well  confess 
himself  unable  to  decide  whether  a  social  order  already 
formed  was  more  necessary  for  the  construction  of  lan- 
guage, than  was  a  language  already  discovered  for  the 
construction  of  society.  Such  the  eternal  irony  that 
defeats  our  science  in  every  search  into  the  mystery  of 
origin.  But  while  we  should  gain  nothing  by  resorting 


400  STRUCTURES. 

to  a  miraculous  beginning,  we  should  thereby  make  all 
science  vain. 

The  phantasmal  character  of  speech  in  these  nebulous 
Continuit  stages  '1S  ^n  striking  contrast  with  the  immense 
ofevoiu-  periods  of  time  which  they  undoubtedly  involve. 
It  is  no  more  practicable  to  fix  the  moment  when 
man  became  aware  of  using  words  for  the  purpose  of  being 
understood,  than  to  find  the  same  moment  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  child.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  the  organs  of  speech 
are  long  unconsciously  directed  towards  that  result. 

Renan  has  emphasized  the  fact  that  these  processes 
differ  with  different  races.1  But  they  are  always  prepara- 
tory to  that  epoch  in  the  growth  of  every  race  when  it  con- 
ceives its  own  language  as  a  whole,  and  deliberately  sets 
about  adapting  it  to  its  moral  purposes  :  the  birth-time 
at  once  of  nationality  and  literature.  And  between  the 
infancy  of  words  and  this  entrance  on  their  higher  func- 
tion of  carrying  arts,  sciences,  and  faiths,  evolution  is  con- 
tinuous ;  and  in  certain  great  respects  the  same  for  all 
races,  however  different  the  details,  or  numerous  the  points 
of  growth. 

Systems  have  been  devised  to  show  that  an  organic 
relation  exists  between  each  of  the  simplest  pho- 

Theories  .  . 

of  organic  netic  elements  and  a  special  form  of  emotion,  or 
relations.  ciass  of  conceptions.2  But  the  beginnings  of  lan- 
guage could  hardly  have  dealt  in  states  of  mind  so  simple 
and  clear  as  this  correspondence  requires.  More  probably 
they  expressed  a  confused  mingling  of  emotions  which  no 
analysis  of  ours  can  possibly  unravel. 


1  This  is  denied  in  Goldziher's  Hebrew  Mythology,  ch.  i.  (1877),  from  the  stand-point  of 
cosmical  mythology ;  but  the  argument  appears  quite  insufficient  to  disprove  special  psycho- 
logical distinctions. 

2  See  Hegel's  Theory  of  the  Emotional  Meaning  of  the  Vowel  Sounds,  and  Grimm's  Scale 
of  Sound  and  Color  Correspondences,  given  in  Benlcew's  Aper<;u  de  la.  Science  Compar.  des 
Langues  (1872),  pp.  104,  105.     Also  the  curious  speculations  in  the  Preface  to  Richardson's 
English  Dictionary. 


LANGUAGE.  40 1 

For  similar  reasons  I  hesitate  to  accept  the  current  opin- 
ion that  the  earliest  form  of  words  is  the  mono-  Primitive 
syllabic.  Primitive  speech  must  have  been  mainly  1na"t§J^_ 
emotional  or  imitative.  There  seems  to  be  no  syllabic, 
good  reason  for  excluding  polysyllabic  forms  from  |J£*£"* 
the  earliest  interjections  ;  and  it  is  impossible  that  sounds, 
imitations  of  animals  should  be  other  than  for  the  most 
part  polysyllabic.  In  every  case,  the  length  of  the  word 
would  depend  on  the  nature  of  the  sound  to  be  imitated, 
or  the  feeling  to  be  expressed.  African  languages  contain 
many  imitative  words  in  seven  syllables.1  Many  of  the 
agglutinated  sentences  of  the  Red  Race  represent  an  ear- 
lier stage  of  language  than  the  monosyllabic.  The  simplest 
words  may  have  resulted  from  analysis,  or  they  may  be  the 
scattered  debris  of  complex  wholes.  In  a  masterly  essay 
on  the  Origin  of  Language,  Bleek  has  developed  the  state- 
ment that  an  interjection  was  the  product  of  an  entire  state 
of  mind ;  each  of  these  primitive  words  being  a  complex 
of  what  may  be  called  grammatical  germs,  which  after- 
wards, by  analysis,  appear  as  elements  of  the  sentence,  or 
"  parts  of  speech."  It  is  certainly  natural  that  the  mind 
should  at  first  see  things  as  wholes,  and  itself  act  as  a 
whole  ;  that  verb,  noun,  qualifying  particles,  subject  and 
object,  should  all  be  commingled  in  each  effort  at  expres- 
sion. The  rude  instinct  does  not  act  as  a  body  of  distinct 
relations,  but  in  instantaneous  flashes  of  feelings,  habits, 
perceptions,  which  the  later  reason  cannot  analyze.  How 
natural  that  it  should  agglutinate  the  syllables  that  spring 
to  birth  out  of  the  mysterious  correspondence  which  unites 
the  organs  of  speech  with  the  movements  of  mind  ! 

Even  the  more  abstract  mental  processes  are  involved  in 
this  rudimentary  period  of  language :  for  the  crud-  Compre_ 
est  gestures  and  signs  are  evidently  interpreted  by  hensivness 
the  hearers  as  expressive  of  divers  classes  of  emo-  ° 

1  Bleek,  Origin  of  Language. 
26 


402  STRUCTURES. 

tions.  The  contents  of  such  facial  changes  as  physiog- 
nomical science  is  now  tracing  in  the  more  advanced  races 
indicate  that  an  emotion,  simple  as  it  may  seem,  sways 
every  feature  to  a  special  language,  and  combines  these 
several  syllables  of  expression  in  its  single  impulse.  And 
why  should  not  the  language  of  the  vocal  organs  have 
been  equally  complex  with  that  of  the  facial  ?  Some  anal- 
ogous actions  must  have  produced  that  agglutinative  form 
of  words  which  opens  the  history  of  language  in  the  proper 
sense  of  the  word. 

It  has  been  fully  shown  by  Tylor  that  "  the  two  great 
methods  of  stating  verbal  relations  —  namely,  by  metaphor 
and  by  syntax  —  belong  to  the  infancy  of  expression,  and  are 
as  much  at  home  in  the  language  of  savages  as  in  that  of 
philosophers."  l 

Thus  the  definition  of  languages  as  the  u  living  product 
of  the  whole  inward  man  "  2  is  true  even  of  the  earliest, 
whose  complex  units  of  speech  contain  in  germ  all  the 
generic  forces  that  are  to  be  unfolded  in  the  future  struct- 
ures of  grammatical  science.3 

The  derivation  of  languages  from  the  simplest  verbal 

forms,  or  "roots,"  so   general  in   modern   linguis- 

notthebe-  tics,  is  therefore  likely  to  mislead  us.     "Roots" 

ginning  of    can  hardly  have  been  'the   first  forms  of  speech, 

language, 

but  a  which  properly  begins  in  such  combinations  as  are 
necessary  for  the  communication  of  feeling.  It  is 
extremely  doubtful  if  any  of  the  root  syllables  to  which  we 
reduce  a  language  belonged  to  the  primitive  stock  of  actual 
words.  They  are  either  products  of  analysis,  reached  by 
stripping  off  prefixes  and  suffixes,  and  by  other  systematic 
methods  of  reducing  words  to  an  ideal  nucleus  which  was 
probably  never  in  use  by  itself ;  or  else  they  result  from 

1  Primitive  Culture.  2  Schlegel. 

»  This  must  hold  equally  of  the  ethical  element.  Yet  Goldziher  (Heir.  Mythol.)  attempts 
to  trace,  not  only  distinct  words,  but  even  mythology  as  a  whole,  to  an  epoch  in  which  he 
affirms  this  element  to  have  been  as  yet  non-existent. 


LANGUAGE.  403 

the  fusion  of  earlier  polysyllabic  forms  (like  the  Saxon  lord 
from  hlaford,  or  the  English  wont  from  will  not).  It  is 
probable  that  the  verbal  deliquescence  which  we  observe 
in  later  stages  of  inflected  languages,  dissolving  out  the 
pronouns  and  particles,  tense  and  mood  signs,  that  are 
imbedded  in  their  grammatical  forms,  was  equally  active 
in  melting  down  the  combinations  that  made  up  the  primi- 
tive words.  Even  such  positively  agglutinative  structures 
as  the  Tartar  and  North  American  dialects  mark  distinc- 
tions between  the  syllables  by  emphasis,  gesture,  and  tone, 
which  are  properly  the  beginning  of  disintegration.  On 
the  other  hand,  inflection  also  is  but  a  finer  and  closer 
kind  of  agglutination,  peculiar  to  certain  race-qualities,  and 
belongs  probably  to  a  much  earlier  stage  than  we  are  wont 
to  suppose :  nor  is  it  necessarily  preceded  by  a  mono- 
syllabic formation.  Thus  the  disintegrative  and  construc- 
tive processes,  so  readily  recognized  in  later  stages  of 
linguistic  growth,  probably  go  on  side  by  side  in  very 
early  ones.  Man,  the  centre  of  polarities,  at  once  destroyer 
and  builder,  is  true  to  his  functions  even  in  these  infantile 
motions  of  his  thought.  Mind  and  body  are  but  sides  of 
one  and  the  same  incessant  interchange  of  waste  and 
repair;  the  dual  movement  whence  harmony  issues,  the 
Yin  and  Yang  of  progress. 

Such  processes  of  separation  and  fusion,  going  on  to- 
gether, would  obviously  result  in  shortening  words    Forma- 
from    polysyllabic    concretions    into    simple    con-  ^"J*,,  b 
densed  forms,  with  breathing  spaces,  as  it  were,  separation 
between   them.      It  is  probably  in   this   way  that  andfusion- 
many  of  the  monosyllables  were  produced  which  we  have 
4agreed  to  call  roots. 

Is  there  sufficient  ground  for  dividing  languages  into  a 
monosyllabic,   an   agglutinative,  and    an  inflected  Doubts  as 
stage  ?     Do  even  the  Aryan  tongues  afford  the  evi-  ^hsjo"s^ 
dences  of  such  a  process  ?     Humboldt  has  indeed  languages. 


406  STRUCTURES. 

their  grammatical  homogeneousness  and  convertibility,  hint- 
ing of  the  lowest  forms  of  organic  life,  —  have  led  to  a 
general  belief  that  it  represents  a  primitive  stage  in  the 
evolution  of  speech.1  Even  Renan,  who  doubts  the  prece- 
dence of  monosyllabism  to  agglutination,  declares  that  the 
Chinese  absolutely  lacks  a  grammar,  and  that  the  only 
thing  it  has  in  common  with  Sanscrit,  that  perfection  of 
inflected  speech,  is  the  end  to  be  attained.  The  compara- 
tive fewness  of  words,2  supplemented  by  varieties  of  tone, 
and  the  great  number  of  meanings  for  which  many  of  them 
are  obliged  to  do  duty,  have  been  regarded  as  so  many  dis- 
tinct proofs  that  we  have  here  a  language  crystallized  in 
its  first  stages,  and  transmitted  unchanged.  "  The  self- 
isolating  quality  of  its  sounds  resists  all  attempts  at  com- 
bination, derivation,  formal  distinction  of  the  parts  of  the 
sentence,  or  of  the  signs  of  grammatical  relations."3 
Edkins  believes  that  an  original  monosyllabic  language, 
common  to  all  mankind,  preceded  the  "  dispersion  of 
tongues,"  and  that  the  Chinese  migration  retained  these 
older  forms. 

That,  even  apart  from  Biblical  deductions,  the  above 
it  is  not  theory  of  the  Chinese  language  will  be  confirmed 
ThTroots  by  m°dern  science,  can  by  no  means  be  regarded 
show  this,  as  certain.  Its  very  monosyllabism  has  been 
strongly  disputed.  Remusat  denied  it,  and  Meadows4 
asserts  that  nearly  the  whole  spoken  language  consists  of 
compound  words.  Each  element  of  the  composition  is,  it 
is  true,  a  pure  word  ;  but  this  aptness  for  combination  at 
least  allows  the  supposition  that  the  elements  themselves 
may  have  been  fused  from  more  complex  forms.  The  lan- 
guage abounds  in  verbal  coalescences,  and  in  many  the 

1  Miiller,  Orig.  of  Lang.,  p.  287. 

2  Four  hundred  and  fifty  in  the  Mandarin  (or general)  dialect,  though  in  special  provincial 
ones  old  endings  and  quasi  inflections  increase  the  number  to  nine  hundred.    (De  Rosny, 
Grammar,  p.  45.) 

3  Schott,  Chinesische  Sprachlehre,  p.  9. 

4  Notes  on  the  Government  and  People  of  China  (1847),  P-  I^- 


LANGUAGE.  4O/ 

original  words  are  not  easily  distinguished.1  Bazin,  the 
pupil  of  Julien,  at  one  time  maintained  that  literary  Chinese 
was  the  contraction  of  a  polysyllabic  vulgar  tongue.  What- 
>ever  estimate  be  put  on  these  opinions,  there  are  many 
reasons  which  make  it  difficult  to  believe  that  the  actual 
root-sounds  represent  an  early  epoch  of  speech.  There  is 
nothing  primitive  about  them.2  With  few  exceptions  they 
neither  suggest  imitation  of  natural  sounds  nor  typical 
relations  of  the  human  organs  to  special  forms  of  natural 
feeling.3  It  is  perhaps  true  that  it  would  require  a  more 
subtle  physiology  than  we  now  possess  to  trace  such  rela- 
tions in  Chinese  words.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  instead  of 
proving  that  to  every  elementary  sound  a  special  meaning 
is  prescribed  by  organic  law,  the  facts  of  language  seem 
almost  to  indicate  that  every  sound  may  become  the  sym- 
bol of  every  idea.  "  Why  should  the  Chinese  express 
greatness  by  the  syllable  fa,  the  Aryan  by  ma,  the  Semite 
by  ga  ?  "  4  To  all  appearance,  certainly,  the  Chinese  roots 
are  as  artificial  as  can  well  be  conceived,  and  their  simple 
and  regular  structure  strongly  suggests  elaboration  for 
purposes  of  compact  and  terse  expression.5  Such  expres- 
sion is  a  marked  trait  of  the  national  mind,  and  its  influ- 
ence is  everywhere  visible  in  the  history  of  the  language 
as  a  whole.  There  is  no  reason  why  words  should  not 
share  the  impulse.  Their  uniformity  is  the  strongest 
evidence  that  they  are  a  product  of  national  art.  So  strik- 
ingly do  the  supposed  "  roots  "  differ  from  the  earliest  voca- 
bles of  other  races,  that  they  form  a  positive  instance  of  that 
specialism  in  races,  which  is  likely  to  be  substituted  for 

1  Bastian,  Peking,  p.  54. 

2  Edkins  ascribes  the  defect  of  consonantal  endings  to  the  falling  off  of  certain  final  mutes 
during  the  last  twelve  hundred  years  in  the   North  and  West  of  China,  which  he  finds   still 
extant  in  Kwan-tung  and  Fo-kien,  and  in  the  old  national  poetry.  (Internat.  Congr.  of  Oriental- 
ists;  London,  1874.) 

8  St.  Denys  is,  I  think,  peculiar  in  his  views  of  the  abundance  of  imitative  forms.    (Patsies 
des  T'ang,  p.  95.) 

4  See  Benlaw,  p.  118. 

6  The  English  language  illustrates  this  tendency  to  simplify  and  shorten  words. 


4O8  STRUCTURES. 

the  application  of  a  single  formula  of  evolution  to  all  va- 
rieties of  human  speech.  That  the  demands  of  so  vast  a 
civilization  should  have  produced  so  scanty  a  vocabulary 
needs  some  other  explanation  than  a  supposed  entire  de- 
pendence on  its  primitive  resources  alone.1 

Quite  as  far  as  the  vocables  of  the  Chinese  from  an 
The  ram  inorganic  condition,  are  its  grammatical  forms.- 
mar  not  Whether  we  accept  or  reject  the  prediction  of  Mr. 

inorganic.      j^g  tnat    ft    wifl    very  soon    be    matter    Qf    surprise 

that  any  one  should  ever  have  doubted  the  identity  of  its 
structure  with  that  of  other  tongues ;  it  is  certain  that  in 
many  of  its  apparent  peculiarities  this  language  bears 
witness  to  the  universality  of  those  logical  processes  to 
which  we  are  wont  to  refer  the  laws  of  grammatical  sci- 
ence. The  use  of  one  word  for  a  great  variety  of  mean- 
ings is  common  in  the  Sanscrit  and  Egyptian,  and  well 
known  to  all  modern  languages.  Syntactical  forms  are 
Grammat-  not  wanting  to  the  Chinese,  being  represented  by 
icai  ex-  the  position  of  words  in  the  sentence,  and  the  tones 
of  the  voice.  Even  if  it  might  seem  that  delicate 
shades  of  feeling  and  thought  were  not  as  expressible  by 
such  means  as  by  inflection  in  other  languages,  we  must 
remember  that  the  national  mind  has  here  created  an 
instrument  suited  to  its  own  genius,  and  that  it  has  per- 
haps left  all  the  more  room  for  the  action  of  such  powers 
as  inference  and  association  in  interpreting  its  rigid  words. 
But  this  is  by  no  means  the  whole.  These  expedients  of 
position  and  tone  are  well  known  to  linguistic  types  of  a 
high  order.  The  English  readily  marks  in  these  ways  the 

1  Legge  says  that  the  language  has  so  changed  since  the  age  of  the  Tcheou  that  the 
Shu-king  rhymes  cannot  now  be  found.     Edkins  has  shown  numerous  "  letter  changes"  in 
the  pronunciation  of  the  roots,  both   in  ancient  and  modern  times.     The  actual  diversity  of 
dialects  in  China  indicates  that  the  ingenuity  of  the  people  expends  itself  on  these  transforma- 
tions rather  than  on  inventing  new  words. 

2  Chinese  as  they  Are,  ch.  xvii. 


LANGUAGE. 


409 


different  uses  of  the  same  word  for  noun  and  verb  :  as  in 
pronouncing  the  phrase,  with  reason  do  we  reason  thus ; 
or  for  noun  and  adverb  thus,  Jte  does  ive'll  who  opens  a  well ; 
or  for  infinitive,  imperative,  and  indicative,  as  in  learn  how 
to  leant,  by  resolving  that  yon  will  learn.  The  English 
also  indicates  by  position  whether  a  noun  is  subject  or 
object  in  a  sentence. 

It  is  a  law  familiar  to  grammarians  that  the  inflectional 
stage  of  language  is  transient,  and  develops  into  another 
in  which  the  structure  of  a  sentence  depends  no  longer  on 
the  mere  forms  of  words,  but  on  the  logical  relations  of  the 
ideas  which  they  represent.  Thus,  in  the  later  English, 
inflection  has  been  reduced  to  a  minimum :  a  word  is  in- 
variable, its  special  meaning  and  force  being  shown  by  its 
position,  according  to  the  natural  syntax  of  the  idea  of 
which  it  forms  a  part.  This  structure,  which  so  closely 
resembles  the  Chinese,  is  in  modern  languages  the  sign  of 
advanced  intellectual  growth  ;  and,  as  a  result  of  the  adap- 
tation of  speech  to  the  growing  demands  of  civilization,  it 
enables  us  to  comprehend  how  large  a  scope  of  expression 
may  be  secured  by  the  uninflected  syllables  of  that  appar- 
ently inorganic  tongue.  We  may  easily  exaggerate  the 
importance  of  inflection  in  the  expression  of  the  relations 
of  thought.  Some  agglutinative  languages,  like  the  Qui- 
chua,  are  said  to  accomplish  this  by  means  of  particles 
simply  added  to  words,  with  more  precision  and  compact- 
ness than  the  inflected  European.1  Even  the  gesture-lan- 
guage of  deaf-mutes,  which  has  no  "  grammar,"  conveys 
ideas  of  relation  with  surprising  ease.  Speech  is  every- 
where but  the  instrument  of  a  force  beyond  itself,  and  all 
grammatical  forms  hasten,  as  if  gifted  with  insight,  to 
subserve  the  spiritual  demands  for  communion  and  growth, 
of  which  they  are  the  product. 

The  Chinese  has  special  auxiliary  words  that  mark  its 

1  Markham's  Grammar* 


4IO  STRUCTURES. 

tenses.  It  distinguishes  cases  by  prepositions,  has  a  full 
supply  of  pronouns,  three  ways  of  denoting  numerals,  and 
a  special  sign  for  the  plural,  as  well  as  the  device  of  doub- 
ling words  for  the  same  purpose.1  For  some  of  these  ob- 
jects it  has  transformed  certain  verbs  and  nouns  into  par- 
ticles or  qualifying  signs,  thenceforth  called  "  empty " 
words,  in  distinction  from  these  which  retain  their  inde- 
pendent force,  and  are  hence  called  "  full."  2 

It  knows  how  to  check  the  ambiguities  arising  from  mul- 
Howam-  tifold  meanings  of  the  same  word.  Many  terms 
have  distinctive  force  ;  particles  that  always  give  a 
checked,  negative,  or  a  possessive,  or  a  verbal  sense  to  the 
word  they  qualify,  —  particles  transitive  or  copulative.  Even 
the  pauses  and  end  of  a  sentence  are  marked  by  words  or 
sounds,  analogous  to  our  rising  and  falling  accents. 

The  special  sense  in  which  a  word  is  to  be  understood  is 
further  indicated  by  combining  a  general  term  with  the 
special  one  whose  meaning  is  to  be  defined  ;  by  bringing 
together  synonyma  to  direct  the  mind  to  their  common 
meaning,  or  by  symbolic  compounds,  neither  of  which  alone 
could  express  the  idea,  —  as  "  head-eye  "  (overseer),  "  forest- 
king  "  (tiger).  All  these  ways  are  familiar  to  English  use. 
Determinatives  are  added  to  specify  classes.  Numbers 
are  affixed  to  designate  wholes;  as  "  the  four  seas;" 
"  the  hundred  grains  ;  "  "  the  hundred  families,"  or  whole 
nation.  These  are  all  products  of  grammatical  elaboration, 
and  show  how  very  far  the  language  is  from  primitive  and 
inorganic. 

Among  such  products  we  may  count  the  expedient  of 
Uses  of  the  determinative  tones,  by  which  the  four  hundred 
"tones."  ancj  fifty  monosyllables  are  multiplied  threefold,  and 
materials  afforded  for  combination  to  the  extent  of  supply- 
ing with  sounds  the  fifty  thousand  signs  in  the  Kang-hi 

1  See  Julien's  Syntaxe  Nouv.  de  la  Langue  Chin-  (1869) ;  Summers's  Rudiments  of  the 
Chin.  Lang.  (London,  1864). 

2  Hoveclacque, La  Linguistique  (1876). 


LANGUAGE.  411 

Lexicon.  This  remarkable  expedient  stands  almost  alone 
among  linguistic  constructions,  if  we  regard  the  nature  of 
the  attempt,  or  the  scale  on  which  it  is  applied.  Such  an 
immense  and  varied  use  of  intonations  which  in  other  races 
are  expressive  of  emotions,  purely  for  phonetic  needs,  be- 
longs, of  course,  to  China  alone.  It  is  difficult  to  accept 
any  exact  period  for  its  beginning.1  We  should  say  of  the 
Chinese  tone-language  that  neither  Shemitic  alphabet  nor 
Aryan  inflection  is  a  mdre  positive  mark  of  continued 
culture  than  this  artificial  interweaving  of  the  principle  of 
separating  tone  from  feeling  with  the  whole  speech  of  a 
people.  Observe  how  enttrely  it  is  in  accordance  with  the 
national  genius  for  minute  detail  in  all  kinds  of  construc- 
tion. There  are  eight  or  nine  of  these  tones  in  the  Southern 
dialects,  and  five  in  the  Mandarin.  A  natural  expedient 
of  monosyllabism,  and  generally  found  connected  with  it, 
tones  are  here  worked  out  in  so  systematic  a  form  as 
scarcely  to  suggest  such  simple  relations  ;  and  the  result 
is  a  monument  at  once  of  national  receptivity  and  art. 

Finally,  the  hearer  supplies  defects  of  grammatical  con- 
struction by  inference  and  association,  based  on  a  _ 

*  Divination 

common  stock  of  traditions  and  customs.     This  is  of  mean- 
made  necessary  by  an  elliptical  style  deficient  in  ing> 
conjunctive  particles,  which  are  the  articulation  of  the  body 
of  speech.     Thus  linguistic  divination  has  been  elaborated 
to  an  extent  which  shows  what  a  magnetic  force  may  be 
reached  by  mutual  understanding  in  a  great  and  ancient 
people.     Scholars  like  Julien  admit  the  absolute  necessity 
of  minute  acquaintance  with  national  habits  and  history  to 
enable  them  to  interpret  a  sign-language  which  does  but 
hint  its  meaning.     There  can  be  no  evidence  of  maturity 
in  a  language  more  striking  than  the  instinctive  supply  of  • 
its  unexpressed  logical  connections,  by  long  practice,  out 

1  The  Chinese  ascribe  its  introduction  to  Buddhist  monks  in  the  time  of  the  Tsi  and  Leang 
dynasties  (Schott,  p.  49) ;  but  we  cannot  suppose  it  to  have  been  imposed  at  a  given  period  by 
invention,  and  without  root  in  the  previous  habits  of  the  people. 


412  STRUCTURES. 

of  the  associations  of  the  popular  mind.  Humboldt  has 
ingeniously  suggested  that  the  very  meagreness  of  the 
grammar  increases  the  keenness  of  instinct  in  recognizing 
these  connections  ;  while  a  more  elaborate  syntax  may  tend 
to  mystify  or  deaden  such  a  sense.1 

After  all  these  expedients,  there  remains  a  large  inor- 
inorganic  ganic  element  in  the  stiff  isolation  of  Chinese  words, 
elements.  Jt  is  in  contrast  with  the  social  fusibility  of  the 
race,  and  their  defective  individuality  ;  but  it  corresponds 
with  the  measured  uniformity  of  their  mental  action,  and 
the  habit  of  seeing  things  in  detail  more  than  in  wholes.  It 
illustrates  the  tendency  of  mecltanical  routine  to  atomize 
the  mind,  substituting  the  mere  succession  or  repetition  of 
forms  for  the  perception  of  relations.  The  ways  in  which 
this  defect  is  counteracted  being  so  purely  matters  of  na- 
tional feeling  and  education,  our  acquaintance  with  the 
literature  must  be  of  slow  and  difficult  growth. 

We  have  already  noticed  the  imperfection  of  the  Chinese 
Lack  of  sense  of  sound.  On  that  mystic  world,  intermediate 
interest  in  between  thought  and  concrete  form,  the  Hindu 
pauses,  allured  by  its  far  reaches  and  hints  of  the 
infinite.  Notwithstanding  his  dislike  of  analysis,  he  has 
pressed  to  its  ultimate  elements  and  constructed  his  won- 
derful alphabetic  speech.  But  the  Chinese  skips  such 
spheres  in  his  haste  for  the  written  sign.  His  interest  in 
sound  is  confined  to  its  moral  uses  on  the  one  hand,  and 
its  concrete  materials  on  the  other.  No  people  has  so 
earnestly  preached  the  educational  uses  of  music,  nor 
sought  so  indefatigably  to  make  effective  actual  music. 
The  number  of  instruments  mentioned  in  their  old  books 
is  astonishing.2  In  this  ethical  direction  is  their  ideal  at- 
traction. Yet  the  study  of  the  art  and  science  itself  is  in 
its  rudiments. 

1  See  also  Bastian's  Peking,  p-  532. 

3  Dennys's  lecture  in  Journ.  of  N.  Ch.  Br.  of  R.  A.  S.,  No.  viii. 


LANGUAGE.  413 

Sound  has  fared  in  its  literary  precisely  as  in  its  musical 
relations.  The  instrument,  whether  as  written  Causes  the 
sign  or  musical  invention,  has  received  all  atten-  absenceo£ 

an  alpha- 

tion  ;  while  sound  itself  has  never  been  resolved  bet. 
into  its  elements,  either  as  words  or  as  tones.  Vocal  analy- 
sis has  never  reached  an  alphabet  ; l  though  the  words  can 
hardly  be  called  syllables  in  our  sense,  since  they  are  not 
combinations  of  primary  sounds.  In  what  way  they  are 
associated  with  the  meanings  they  bear,  we  as  yet  have 
little  or  no  knowledge.  The  origination  of  words  is  far 
more  obscure  than  that  of  written  signs.  Such  primitive 
relations  have  been  mainly  effaced  in  the  present  language 
of  the  Chinese.2 

• 

As  in  their  speech  the  imitation  of  natural  tones  is  no 
longer  to  be  recognized,  so  in  their  writing  the  rude  Great  mui- 
picture  of  the  object  has  mainly  vanished  through  ^llSe" 
successive  changes  of  form.  Yet  the  meaning  of  signs  com- 
these  "  ideographs  "  remains  fixed  ;  they  stand  not  ^wntsTof 
for  mere  sounds,  though  so  extensively  employed  words- 
as  phonetics,  but  for  realities  also  ;  and  every  new  idea  re- 
quires a  new  combination  of  strokes,  or  compound  figure, 
as  it  would  require  a  new  alphabetic  compound  with  us. 
While  therefore  every  old  type  holds  its  identity,  subject 
only  to  such  changes  as  art  or  convenience  may  dictate, 
great  numbers  have  been  added  from  time  to  time.3  This 
is  the  secret  of  their  immense  quantity  as  compared  with 
the  deficiency  of  words.  It  is  harder  for  a  Chinese  to  make 
new  words  than  to  paint  new  characters,  partly  because  of 
his  special  propensity  to  hand-work,  partly  because  the 
play  of  his  organs  of  speech  is  limited  more  narrowly  than 
those  of  most  other  races,  and  partly  because  the  rigidity 
of  the  signs  began  at  an  early  period  to  check  that  fusion 

1  The  Buddhist  alphabet  for  transcribing  Sanscrit  words  is  a  special  instrument  for  that 
purpose,  and  is  not  in  general  use.  (De  Rosny,  Chinese  Grammar,  p.  45.) 

*  Edkins  has  made  interesting  researches  in  this  direction.     See  his  Introduction. 

*  Wiiliams's  great  Dictionary  (1874)  contains  12,000  characters. 


4M  STRUCTURES. 

and  combination  of  the  sounds  they  represented,  by  which 
alone  the  vocabulary  could  have  been  enlarged.  To  devise 
a  new  picture  was  a  simple  matter ;  but  the  art  of  forming 
new  monosyllables  was  a  lost  one.  Therefore,  with  the 
exception  of  a  certain  amount  of  the  fusion  above  men- 
tioned, he  takes  merely  the  old  stock  of  words  to  express 
,  the  new  conceptions.  The  word  chi  is  employed  for  212 
signs,  chingim  113,  and  fou  for  138.  This  defect  of  syl- 
lables is  wonderfully  compensated,  as  we  shall  hereafter 
see,  by  the  extended  uses  of  a  written  language  of  endless 
resource. 


Before  indicating  these  uses,  I  proceed  to  trace,  as  far  as 
The  Writ-  I  may,  the  universal  laws  and  processes  to  which 

'  Slgns'    the  Chinese  graphic  system  invites  our  attention. 

The  wonderful  art  of  communicating  thought  by  written 
Origin  of  signs  has  three  stages,  —  the  ideograph,  the  rebus, 
bg^eariy"  tne  a^Pnabet.  This  process  is  a  pressure  of  ma- 
stages  of  terials  from  below,  through  attractions  to  an  ideal 
above.  It  begins  in  the  instinctive  use  of  the 


graph.  nearest  means  for  bringing  thoughts  to  the  eye. 
The  savage  not  only  cuts  figures  on  bark  to  inform  his  tribe 
of  his  doings  ;  he  tattoos  himself  with  images  of  his  totems, 
from  the  mere  love  of  reproducing  that  for  other  eyes  of 
which  his  own  mind  is  full.  On  the  Siberian  rocks  are 
found  rudely-cut  pictures  of  men,  animals,  arrows,  huts, 
with  other  sprawling  signs,  some  of  which  appear  like  a 
looped  and  cursive  writing,  though  of  no  known  class,  while 
others,  equally  unrelated,  are  curiously  enough  mixed  with 
Arabic  numerals  and  Roman  letters.1  This  last  fact  ren- 
ders their  antiquity  very  suspicious.  More  significant  are 
the  rude  pictures,  of  expeditions  or  exploits  painted  on 
buffalo  robes  by  the  North  American  tribes,  which  are  real 

1  See  De  Rosny,  A  rchives  Palceographiqiies,  I.  143. 


LANGUAGE.  415 

forms  of  inventive  symbolism,  and  point  to  an  instinct  of 
interpretation  akin  fo  the  fine  scent  and  keen  logic  of  the 
Indian  senses.1  These  are  the  hieroglyphics  of  the  wild  ; 
some  of  them  as  well  done  as  the  Egyptian,  and  far  better 
than  the  old  Chinese  picture-signs.  To  these  goes  the 
complex  experience  of  the  nomad  in  definite  wholes,  fa- 
miliar to  his  fellows.2  These  are  his  simple  science  and  his 
intuitive  poetry  :  their  metaphoric  meaning  is  his  natural 
history,  raised  into  the  language  of  feeling  and  imagination, 
and  the  morality  of  fable.  He  has  done  more  than  picture 
objects  :  this  is  dramatic  combination.  To  find  mere  copy- 
ing without  conscious  symbolism,  we  must,  perhaps,  go 
back  to  the  "  Stone  Epoch," "  in  which  quite  respectable 
figures  of  animals  are  found,  though  wanting  afterwards  in 
the-"  Bronze."3  It  is  at  least  a  poetic,  if  not  positively 
historic,  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  Gaelic  alphabet,  the  let- 
ters of  which  were  named  from  plants  or  trees,  that  these 
characters  represented  symbolical  knots  and  ties  formed 
from  branching  twigs,  by  which  knowledge  was  conveyed, 
and  which  had  been  the  mystic  hieroglyph  of  the  druid  and  • 
the  bard.4  Many  have  questioned  the  opinion  of  Oppert, 
that  all  the  cuneiform  signs  (as  well  as  the  Egyptian  and 
Chinese)  are  transformed  ideograms,  on  the  ground-  that 
this  would  leave  no  room  for  the  element  of  arbitrary  in- 
vention ;  but  there  is  quite  evidence  enough  to  prove  that, 
as  a  whole,  ideographic  evolution  is  the  main  factor  in  the 
written  languages  of  mankind. 

The  qiiipus,  or  knotted  cords,  used  in  primitive  China,       / 
and  at  a  more  advanced  stage  in  Peru,  are  an  appeal  to    - 

1  In  the  Indian  petition  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  in   1849,  the  unity  of  pur- 
pose of  the  seven  chiefs  is  expressed  by  lines  passing  from  one  to  the  others,  and  their  per- 
sons by  the  animals  from  which  their  names  were  derived  (Schoolcraft).     Something  similar  is 
said  to  have  been  preserved  in  Egyptian  inscriptions.  f 

2  Rude  tribes  of  Central  Africa  communicate  in  this  way.     De  Rosny,  Ecritures  Figvra- 
tives,  &c.  (1870)  p.  38. 

8  Lubbock,  Prim.  Cond.  of  Man,  pp.  28-30  (Am.  ed.). 
4  Logan,  Scottish  Gael. 


4l6  STRUCTURES. 

colors  for  picturing  thought ;  of  all  methods  of  expressing 
grammatical  relations  .the  most  imp'erfect,  but  curiously 
combining  with  its  limitations  a  species  of  arbitrary  selec- 
tion which  allies  it  even  with  the  phonetic  stage  of  written 
speech.  We  note  in  these  earlier  expedients  of  language 
the  large  function  and  discipline  required  of  the  memory, 
as  well  as  of  the  imagination. 

The  transition  from  imitative  to  phonetic  signs  is  a  very 
Transition  great  and  rapid  step  :  since  it  opens  the  use  of  the 
ics^ThT  sign  in  the  pure  service  of  sound ;  that  is,  as 
Rebus.  written  speech  in  the  proper  sense ;  thus  proving 
that  the  whole  communicable  life  of  man  can  be  represented 
to  the  eye.  This  step,  however  continuous  as  respects  the 
use  of  materials,  is  animated  by  a  force  of  tendency 
for  which  no  materials  can  account.  It  involves  aspira- 
tions to  a  fresh  ideal,  and  it  is  taken  very  early.  In  the 
New  World,  as  in  Egypt,  it  begins  in  the  use  of  images 
of  things  to  represent  syllabic  portions  of  personal  names, 
for  which  of  course  no  direct  imitative  signs  were  possible. 
Mexican  picture-writing  abounds  in  this  element :  figures 
of  animals,  flowers,  stones,  plumes,  are  placed  beside  a 
human  head,  their  names  yielding  the  syllabic  sounds  re- 
quired to  designate  the  person  intended.1  They  are  true 
rebuses :  picture-signs  for  sound,  as  ideographs  are  picture- 
signs  of  thoughts.  Ruder  than  the  rudest  playing  cards, 
and  not  unlike  them,  they  reach  the  widest  scope  of  poly- 
syllabism  and  the  largest  mnemonic  uses. 

This  step  is  perhaps  involved  in  the  growth  of  individu- 
ality to  a  demand  for  those  means  of  personal  designation 
which  mere  object-writing  cannot  supply.  Sound,  the  har- 
binger of  fame,  requires  its  own  special  servitors.  It 
would  be  worth  inquiry,  whether,  as  in  Mexico  and  Egypt, 
so  also  in  China,  where  individuality  is  so  feeble,  the  pho- 
netic sign  began  in  these  personal  requirements.  It  began 

1  See  De  Rosny  and  Kingsborough. 


LANGUAGE.  417 

at  all  events  very  early  to  be  associated  with  the  ideograph- 
ic, as  determinative  of  its  special  sound  in  the  given  case.1 
All  the  great  ideographic  systems,  when  they  first  ap- 
pear in  history,  already  contain  a  mixture  of  the  combina- 
two  kinds   of  picture-writing.     To  the   Egyptian,  tionof 

T  i       /^-i    •  phonetic 

Japanese,  and  Chinese,  we.  must  now  add  the  with  pic- 
older  (Anarian)  cuneiform  characters  of  Western  t""-8^8- 
Asia,2  as  a  wonderfully  transformed  system  of  picture- 
signs,  with  phonetic  adaptations.  It  reached  the  same 
stage  with  the  Chinese,  having  a  syllabary,  but  not  an 
alphabet ;  an  interesting  fact  when  connected  with  the 
possible  origin  of  this  system  also  in  the  Mongoloid,  some- 
times called  "Turanian,"  races.8  The  proper  name  for 
these  transitional  systems  would  seem  to  be  ideo-phonctic. 
What  monuments  of  man's  patient  endeavor  to  combine 
and  develop,  as  well  as  interpret,  the  forms  of  Nature  for 
the  clothing  of  his  inner  life  ! 

The    third    grand    step  in  written  language,   from  pho- 
netic signs  to  alphabetic,  consists  in   reducing  the  Transition 
great  variety  of  such  images  to  a  select  few,  each  to 
appropriated   to  a  special  elementary  sound.     All  upward 
movement  involves  ideal  attractions.     Man  has  listened  to 
the  instrument  of  his  thought  till  he  has  caught  its  ulti- 
mate component  parts,  and  must  combine  them  freely  for 
himself.     His  selection  of  signs  corresponds  with  the  an- 
alytic nature  of  the  process  by  which  those  ultimate  ele- 
ments have  been  reached  ;  its  principle  being  to  use  a  sign 

1  Champollion  imagined  that  the  "  whole  phonetic  system  of  the  East "  was  the  invention 
of  "  some  ingenious  person,  who  thereby  changed  the  face  of  the  world  and  determined  the 
destiny  of  mankind  "  !     Probably  the  real  relation  to  persons  involved  in  phonetic  signs  was  of 
a  very  different  nature. 

2  Wrongly  called  "arrow-head,"  the  wedge-shapes  of  which  they  are  composed  being 
simply  the  convenient  stamp  of  the  graver's  tool.     In  the  older  rudimentary  forms  this  shape 
does  not  appear.     (Me"nant,  Efiigr.  Assyr.  p.  48.)     Maspero  (Hist.  Anc.  de  V Orient,  1875) 
gives  an  interesting  description  of  this  writing. 

3  See  Lenormant,  Anc.  Hist,  of  the  East,  I.  433!  Mehiant ;  De  Rosny,  Ecrii.  Fig. 
The  question  of  a  "Turanian  "  origin  is  still  open,  and  is  being  discussed  with  much  warmth. 
See  also  Lenormant,  Langue  Prim,  de  la  Clialdte  (1875). 

27 


41 8  STRUCTURES. 

of  whose  existing  name  the  sound  to  be  represented  forms 
simply  the  initial  or  the  end.1  This  "  acrological  "  process, 
by  which  the  ideogram  loses  all  of  its  correspondent  sound 
but  the  opening  or  the  close,  has  an  intermediate  stage 
before  reaching  the  pure  alphabet.  Thus  the  Japanese, 
Mexicans,  Assyrians,  stripped  it  of  its  termination  only, 
leaving  the  opening  consonant  and  vowel,  and  forming 
syllabaries  mixed  with  alphabetic  sounds ;  while  the  Egyp- 
tian and  Shemitic  languages  struck  away  all  but  the  simple 
initial  —  what  we  should  call  the  letter  sound  —  and  formed 
alphabets  proper.2  Yet  all  alphabets  have  not  been  the 
Sanscrit  result  of  this  natural  evolution.  To  the  Sanscrit, 
and  she-  which  [s  the  product  of  an  educated  class,  it  has 

mitic  al- 
phabets,     no  application.      Of  the  Shemitic,  too,  it  has  been 

strongly  denied,  yet  by  no  means  with  equal  force. 
Whether  those  mysterious  Phoenician  signs,  mothers  of 
the  Hebrew  and  of  so  many  other  alphabets  of  the  civil- 
ized world,  are  derived,  as  the  most  competent  scholars 
now  assert,3  from  the  Egyptian  hieratic  (or  simplified  pict- 
ure-signs), or  were  invented  by  some  one  or  in  some  way 
not  now  known,4  they  were  at  least  acrologically  "  baptized." 
They  have  received  the  initial  sounds  of  the  names  by 
which  they  are  known  ;  and  these  names  represented  ob- 
jects, of  which  the  sign  was  either  the  altered  image  or 
the  fancied  resemblance.5  Renan  goes  further,  and  thinks 
that  "  the  fact  of  the  forms  of  these  letters  representing 
what  their  names  signify  is  sign  of  a  proceeding  analogous 
to  that  of  the  hieroglyphic  writings.6 

1  This  is  true  also  of  the  Egyptian,  the  Persian,  and  even  the  Buddhist-Chinese  for  tran- 
scribing Sanscrit  sounds. 

See  Congres  Iniernat.  d1  Oriental.  (1873),  II.  106-115  ;  also,  De  Rosny,  Ecrit.  Figur. 
See  Lenormant,  Anc.  Hist,  of  the  East,  II.  208 ;    Maspero,  p.  600;  De  Rouge",  A  cad. 
.  1874;    Ebers,  Egypten  rind  die  Biicher  Moses,  pp.  146-151 ;    Ewald,  Gesch.  d.  Volkt 
Israel,  I.  78. 

Wuttke,  Zeitschr.  der  D.  M.  G.,  1857. 

Gesenius,  Hebrew  Grammar  ;  Furst's  Hebrew  Lexicon. 

Hist,  des  Langues  Stmitiques,  I.  p.  112. 


LANGUAGE.  419 

Of  course  the  number  of  names  suited  for  acrological 
use  renders  the  choice  somewhat  arbitrary.  It  is  Continuous 
here  that  writing  begins  to  be  conventional  rather  ^toT 
than  organic,  and  so  falls  into  the  position  of  a  writing- 
ready  servant  to  thought,  instead  of  a  controlling  mould 
for  it.  The  estimate  of  the  pictures  as  natural  copies  of 
things  must  have  become  measurably  lost  before  the  purely 
conventional  signs  we  call  alphabets  got  constructed  arbi- 
trarily for  linguistic  purposes,  without  regard  to  imitation. 
Here  the  way  opens  for  inventors,  and  alphabets  have  in 
fact  been  constructed  for  semi-civilized  tribes  by  ingenious 
men.1  But  this  has  usually  been  for  a  specific  purpose. 
The  formation  of  an  alphabet  without  use  of  pre-existing 
forms  must  be  rarer  still,  and  its  propagation  extremely 
difficult.2  Ordinarily  the  alphabet  is  evolved  from  picture- 
signs.  The  primer  tells  their  acrological  secret :  "  A  is 
an  apple"  &c. 

The  whole  art  of  writing  is  thus  a  continuous  evolution, 
every  stage  of  which  as  mystery  of  progress  involves  an 
upward,  ideal  attraction,  —  from  the  first  tattooing  or  cut- 
ting of  the  human  skin,  to  these  fine  products  of  analysis, 
the  alphabets  of  civilized  thought.  As  the  phonetic  stage 
continues  in  combination  with  the  picture-signs,  so  it  laps 
over  into  the  alphabetic,  as  for  a  long  period  in  Egypt ;  but 
the  tendency  is  for  the  latter  to  supplant  it,  as  its  perfected 
form. 

Whether  that  step  in  analysis,  of  which  alphabets  are 
the  result,  is  taken  or  not,  the  ideographs  themselves  ideograph- 
do  not  fail  of  development  under  the  shaping  hands  iccha"ges- 
of  convenience  or  beauty.  This  can  be  checked  only  by  an 
invention  like  that  of  printing,  which  would  also  tend  to 
prevent  the  formation  of  a  pure  alphabet  by  holding  fast 

1  Mahaffy,  Prolegom.  to  Anc,  fft'st.,  p.  119. 

2  The  famous  Moeso-Gothic  characters  of  the  Bible  of  Ulphilas  were  founded  on  Greek 
and  Latin  letters. 


420  STRUCTURES. 

the  mind  within  the  syllabic  signs.  The  fact  of  such  an 
invention  may  help  to  explain  the  failure  of  the  Chinese  to 
reach  this  final  stage.  But  ideographic  changes  go  on  to  a 
great  extent,  notwithstanding  printing.  The  original  figure 
gradually  becomes  effaced  ;  just  as  words  lose  their  primi- 
tive inter] ectional  or  mimetic  forms,  and  pass  into  more  or 
less  conventional  syllables,  whose  origin  is  inscrutable 
without  deep  historical  research.  Thus  the  Egyptian  hiero- 
glyph became  first  a  hieratic,  then  a  demotic  or  cursive 
script,  the  former  being  simply  its  characteristic  part  used 
for  the  whole,  and  the  latter  a  still  more  radical  trans- 
formation for  rapid  writing  ;  and  these  changes  took  place 
in  remote  ages.1  The  Chinese  cursive  is  analogous  to  the 
Egyptian  hieratic,  and,  though  much  more  complicated, 
sometimes  even  more  fully  effaces  the  rude  ideograph  than 
either  of  the  later  Egyptian  styles  covers  the  more  elegant 
hieroglyph.  The  cuneiform  writing  is  in  a  style  analogous 
to  the  latest  Chinese  stage,  but  so  utterly  non-ideographic 
in  form  that,  but  for  the  recent  discovery  of  some  of  the 
original  picture-signs  side  by  side  with  the  nail-like  images 
of  them,2  it  would  not  be  believed  that  the  latter  could 
have  originated  in  this  way.  The  time  and  manner  of  the 
change  lie  far  back  in  some  unrecorded  mystery  of  human 
demand  and  supply. 

Chinese  ideography,  on  the  other  hand,  can  be  studied  in 
Can  be  all  its  phases  :  so  distinctly  has  the  national  genius 
thlfchl-"1  for  graphic  art  expressed  itself,  and  so  little  has  it 
nese  signs,  been  checked,  even  by  printing,  in  the  transforma- 
tion of  its  instruments.3  The  living  language,  too,  with  its 
literary  treasures,  makes  all  stages  of  past  construction  an 
open  book.  And  we  are  spared  the  long  series  of  patient 
and  minute  studies  which  the  genius  of  Champollion  and 

1  The  demotic  was  in  use  in  the  time  of  Herodotus. 

2  Me"nant,  Epigr.,  p.  51. 

8  Lettre  de  Pekin,  a  rare  old  book  (1773),  in  which  odd  theories  are  expounded,  and 
specimens  of  all  kinds  of  Chinese  writing  given. 


LANGUAGE.  421 

Rawlinson  would  have  found  inadequate  to  open  Egypt 
and  Assyria,  but  for  the  famous  trilingual  tablets  of  Ro- 
setta  and  Behistun. 

If  the  acquisition  of  such  a  language  of  symbols  requires 
more  time  and  labor  than  we  can  expend  upon  it,  we  can 
yet  recognize  the  ingenuity  implied  in  the  six  classes  into 
which  these  figures  have  long  been  divided.  They  repre- 
sent forms  of  objects  and  symbols  of  abstractions.  They 
combine  these  images  to  suggest  other  ideas  and  objects. 
They  vary  the  attitudes  of  the  same  figure  to  convey 
contrasts  of  meaning  ;  and  they  lend  themselves  immeas- 
urably to  phonetic  uses,  both  with  and  without  explanatory 
additions. 

The  startling  discovery  of  this   symbolism  of  a  great 
civilization,  two  centuries  ago,  led  Pere  Amyot  to  Effect  of 
call  it  "the  picturesque  alphabet  of  the  arts  and  theirdis- 

covery  on 

sciences."  Its  uniqueness  has  grown  more  evi-  Europeans, 
dent  with  time.  Of  purely  native  origin,  it  is  a  genuine 
triumph  of  the  concrete  genius  of  the  Yellow  Race  ;  yet 
there  is  scarcely  a  system  of  ideography  in  the  world 
with  which  the  identification  of  these  signs  has  not  been 
attempted. 

The  natural  hope  of  connecting  them  with  the  oldest 
Egyptian  proved  a  failure,  in  the  fanciful  analogies  Theories  of 
of  De  Guignes,  Amyot,  and  Kidd.1  The  Chinese  theil: con' 

J  nections. 

figures  are  more  practical  and  less  mythological ; 
they  have  pure  allegorical  combinations,  and  none  that  unite 
animal  and  human  forms  ;  they  are  ruder  than  the  hiero- 
glyphics, where  ideography  is  in  its  bloom.  All  these  dif- 
ferences point  to  the  fact  that  the  one  system  came  from  the 
art-culture  of  a  priestly  caste,  and  the  other  system  from  the 
practical  needs  of  an  industrial  people  ;  though  it  is  probable 

1  The  Lettre  de  Pekin  gives  De  Guignes' s  system.  As  he  used  the  worthless  authority  of 
Horapollo,  so  Amyot  trusted  a  similar  witness  in  Kircher.  See  also  Notes  and  Queries; 
Kidd's  China,  pp.  10,  68. 


422  STRUCTURES. 

that,  in  their  more  antique  forms,  the  hieroglyphs  were 
employed  for  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life.1  The  very  few 
ideographic  resemblances  of  Chinese  and  cuneiform  afford 
little  ground  for  comparison.  The  exclusive  use  of  the 
wedge-shape  is  of  itself  a  radical  distinction.2  The  Chinese 
signs  have  been  connected  even  with  the  Mexican,  which 
have  apparently  more  affinity  with  the  picture-writings  of 
imaginary  ^e  Indian  tribes.  More  marvellous  still  are  the 
Bibikai  Christian  antitypes  traced  by  the  Jesuit  fathers  in 
these  old  mysteries  of  the  illumined  pagans  of  Ca- 
thay. Fouquet  treated  the  whole  Shi-king  as  symbolical  of 
the  life  of  Christ,  and  even  found  the  cross  and  nails  figured 
in  the  signs.  Cibot  classified  them  in  the  same  interest  as 
dogmatic,  ecclesiastical,  typical,  and  prophetic.  Amyot 
found  the  Trinity  in  the  triangular  sign  for  union,  and 
Lucifer  in  that  for  evil,  composed  of  two  figures,  meaning 
"lifted  up"  and  "novelty;"  a  compound  of  mouth,  eight, 
and  a  vessel  referred  to  the  number  of  persons  in  the  ark  ; 
"  to  show  "  and  "  trees  "  meant  the  Adamitic  trees  of  know- 
ledge and  life  ;  "  death  "  and  a  "  woman  "  was  an  allusion  to 
the  sin  of  Eve.  All  this  typical  writing  was  of  course 
invented  (or  revealed)  before  the  Deluge,  and  transmitted 
by  Noah  and  his  sons  direct  to  Egypt  and  China.  The 
assured  belief  of  the  author  is  disturbed  only  by  the  fear 
that  his  theory  will  be  assailed  on  the  ground  of  the  ;<  con- 
fusion of  tongues  ; "  but  not  at  all  by  any  suspicion  that 
the  ideograph  is  too  natural  a  form  of  primitive  writing  to 
require  being  traced  to  one  centre  for  mankind,  even 
though  that  centre  be  the  all-sufficient  family  of  "  Noe." 

Our  chief  interest  is  to  trace  the  finer  aesthetic  element 
that  characterizes  this  art  of  expression  by  written  signs  in 

1  Chabas  in  Lepsius's  Zeitsch.filr  Aegypt.  Spr.,  Juli,  1869. 

2  Pauthier  worked  out  an  old  theory  that  the  cuneiform  signs  were  simply  the  Chinese,  with 
their  lines  turned  from  the  upright  to  the  horizontal.     (Jour.  As.  Ap.,  1868.) 


LANGUAGE.  423 

all  its  stages,  from  the  rude  scratch  on  bark  or  skin,  to 
the  elaborate  refinement  of  hieroglyphic  painting,  ^Esthetic 
cuneiform  printing,  and  Chinese  chirography.  So  Element, 
early  did  this  element  appear  in  China  that  the  oldest  known 
writing  (even  if  we  should  accept  the  genuineness  of  the 
supposed  inscription  of  Yu,  which  purports  to  be  older 
than  2000  B.C.1)  has  already  exchanged  the  rude  primitive 
figure  for  an  arbitrary  and  selective  sketch.  In  the  tchouen 
style,  ascribed  to  the  eighth  century  B.C.,  these  outlines  are 
rounded  and  flowing ;  an  evident  effort  to  secure  freedom 
of  hand  without  sacrificing  the  original  image.  Even  the 
ancient  vase  inscriptions,  referred  by  antiquarians  to  the 
Shang  dynasty  (1750-1 1 10  B.C.),  are  very  much  advanced 
beyond  mere  picture-writing,  and  really  have  a  kind  of 
serpentine  flow.2  Less  rude  than  these,  though  in  similar 
style,  are  the  inscriptions  descriptive  of  hunting  and  fishing 
on  the  famous  "  Stone  Drums  "  of  the  Tcheou,  preserved 
and  copied  several  times  with  great  care  as  national  monu- 
ments, and  placed  at  the  gate  of  the  temple  of  Confucius  at 
Peking,  in  the  fourteenth  century.  They  were  discovered, 
half  buried,  in  the  province  of  Shan-si  ;  and  the  earliest 
accounts  of  them,  which  belong  to  the  seventh  century, 
ascribe  them  to  a  period  one  or  two  hundred  years  further 
back.  Chinese  criticism  is  favorable  to  their  antiquity.3 
Writing  on  stone  afforded  little  opportunity  for  freedom  of 
lines,  and  we  are  the  more  surprised  at  the  signs  of  prog- 
ress on  such  material  at  so  early  an  age.  In  this  point  of 
view,  the  "  Stone  Drums  "  of  Peking  may  well  be  held  a 
national  monument  by  a  literary  people,  and  are  of  great 
interest  in  the  history  of  writing. 

1  For  the  genuineness,  see  Pauthier  (Journ.  As.  1872);  against  it  Williams ;  and  Legge 
(Jntrod.  to  the  Sku-king.} 

2  See  Thomas's  plates  and  descriptions  in  Journ.  of  R.  A.  Soc.,  1835 :  also  Schott,  S-pracU., 
p.  100.     Their  real  age  is  uncertain,  but  probably  earlier  than  the  Han. 

3  The  discussion  is  given  in  full  by  Mr.    Bushell  (Journ.  of  N.  China  Branch,  R.  A., 
Soc.  VIII.,  N.  S.),  who  styles  the  Drums  "a  fossilized  stratum  of  transition  from  hieroglyph 
to  radical  and  phonetic." 


424  STRUCTURES. 

Of  course  the  development  we  have  been  tracing  depended 
Its  mechan.  largely  on  the  mechanical  aids  provided  from  age 
kaiaids.  to  age.  The  oldest  writing  was  done  on  bamboo 
plates,  or  bark  of  trees,  with  an  iron  pen  and  a  kind  of 
varnish.  The  use  of  various  woven  fabrics,  and  of  the 
brush,  set  aside  this  bamboo  tablet,  and  led  in  the  second 
century  B.C.  to  the  freer  form  of  character  called  liy  which 
was  soon  followed  by  the  tsao  (cursive) ;  and  this,  aided  by 
the  invention  of  fine  paper  (first  century  A.C.)  and  by  that  of 
printing,  issued  in  the  present  square  style  (kiai),  in  which 
fine  and  body  strokes  are  traced  with  the  camel's  hair  brush 
in  great  detail,  and  with  an  arabesque  intricacy,  fitly  called 
"  grain-in-wood  "  or  "  veins-in-marble." 

Chinese  ideal  analysis,  but  little  interested  in  words  or 
Native  an-  sounds,  found  readier  uses  in  the  more  concrete 
aiysisof  the  sphere  of  written  signs.  Not  only  have  these  been 
referred  to  two  hundred  and  fourteen  u  keys,"  or 
elementary  forms  A  (in  part  at  least  reduced  from  the  later 
compounds,  and  many  of  them  no  longer  in  use),  but  still 
further  resolution  was  made  for  calligraphic  purposes  into  six 
simple  kinds  of  stroke,  and  the  whole  stock  of  radical  signs 
are  classified  according  to  the  number  of  these  strokes  in 
each,  up  to  a  seventeenth  class,  as  a  basis  for  writing  all 
compound  forms.  This  is  the  crown  of  Chinese  refinement. 
It  is  the  most  remarkable  simplification  of  graphic  materials 
known  to  history,  with  the  exception  of  the  cuneiform, 
which  sacrificed  all  character  or  historic  meaning  in  its 
monumental  printing  to  the  convenience  of  the  graving  tool, 
using  only  the  straight  line,  with  slanting,  horizontal,  or 
downward  stroke. 

The  record  of  this  calligraphic  evolution  is  preserved  as 
caiiigraph-  far  as  possible  in  its  latest  phase.  Many  of  the 
tc  develop-  sjgns  stiu  contain  as  much  of  pictorial  outline  as 

ment. 

1  This  selection  was  made  by  a  scholar  in  the  seventeenth  century,  whose  work  has  been 
accepted  in  place  of  a  much  earlier  and  larger  list.  (Schott's  Entu'urf,  and  Edkins's 
Introd.,  &c. 


LANGUAGE.  425 

the  nature  of  the  strokes  allows :  a  crossed  square  for  a 
tilled  field  ;  an  empty  one,  open  at  one  side,  for  a  des- 
ert;  a  square  without  a  covering  line  for  a  well;  three 
peaks  for  a  mountain  ;  flowing  lines  for  water  and  for  hair  ; 
stems  with  crossing  or  oblique  lines  on  each  side  for  va- 
rious kinds  of  grain  ;  three  open  buds  for  spring  ;  a  rude 
form  of  legs  for  man  ;  two  trees  for  a  wood.  Many  hint 
more  sketchily,  as  by  four  parallel  lines  for  legs,  and  a  line 
twice  bent  backwards  for  a  bow.  Many  are  purely  sym- 
bolic ;  but  in  most,  convenience  and  minute  calligraphy  have 
quite  buried  the  original  forms  in  a  crowd  of  lines,  points, 
and  curves,  which  yield  no  aid  to  the  student  from  natural 
association.  Yet  these,  upon  being  traced  back  through 
intermediate  links  to  the  original  forms  of  which  they  are 
the  product,  become  often  strikingly  significant.  Here  at 
least  the  workman  cannot  be  charged  with  inertia  or  im- 
mobility. Two-thirds  of  the  actual  signs  are  variants  from 
the  classic,  and  many  are  no  longer  to  be  analyzed,  at  any 
rate  by  the  foreign  eye.  Of  the  two  hundred  and  fourteen 
keys,  a  careful  scrutiny  will  scarcely  detect  in  more  than 
forty-  any  ideographic  relation,  though  a  number  are  dedu- 
cible  from  wider  ancient  characters,  by  much  squaring  of 
lines  and  chipping  of  parts.  The  rest  even  of  the  radicals, 
and  the  whole  of  the  cursive,  is  a  mystery  of  transmutation, 
through  which  a  Darwin  or  a  Tylor  will  be  needed  to  trace 
laws  of  natural  selection  and  survival.1 

The  aesthetic  value  of  the  symbolic  signs  is  more  easily 
recognized,  though  often  obscured  by  their  doubt-  Poet;cai 
ful  origin  and  formation,  and  by  their  subtle  literary  Symb 
association.     The  symbolism  is  ingenious  and  even  poetic. 
By  the  qombination  of   a  picture-sign  with  a  metaphoric 
one,  the  faculties  of  abstraction  and  imagination  are  seen 

1  Edkins  has  shown  already  how  much  the  study  of  old  forms  of  writing  is  to  do  for  the 
solution  of  these  calligraphic  riddles. 


426  STRUCTURES. 

in  direct  relations  with  concrete  things.  The  following  are 
obvious  types  of  abstract  ideas.  By  a  falling  moon  is 
signified  darkness  ;  by  two  hands,  greeting  ;  by  two  flags 
opposed,  strife  ;  by  a  woman  under  a.  roof,  content ;  by 
heart  and  blood,  compassion  ;  by  an  old  man  and  a  youth, 
piety  ;  by  a  man  and  a  sign  for  two,  or  by  a  heart  and  a 
sign  for  thousand,  philanthropy.  Eye,  plant,  and  heart 
mean  thinking;  heart  and  white,  fear;  heart  with  slave, 
anger  ;  with  ear,  shame  ;  with  scholar  or  ten,  completeness. 
Two  hearts  are  friendship  ;  man  and  word,  fidelity  ;  fire 
and  water,  calamity.  A  woman  and  child  are  tenderness ; 
a  heart  between  two  gates,  sadness,  and  under  a  field, 
thought. 

Other  striking  and  poetic  combinations  are  selected  from 
Mr.  Lay's  very  attractive  volume.  They  show  how  expres- 
sive the  picture-sign  may  become  with  meaning  beyond 
itself.  A  sheep  (as  docile),  combined  with  strength,  sig- 
nifies authoritative  instruction ;  with  water,  it  is  the  sea 
which  feeds  the  clouds  as  sheep  are  fed  ;  with  heart,  it 
means  following  ;  with  mind,  to  cherish.  A  hand,  with  an 
eye,  means  meeting  of  friends.  Circular  movement,  with 
a  man,  is  regular  routine ;  with  a  hand,  it  is  a  functionary ; 
with  speech,  discourse.  First  rudiments,  with  erectness, 
mean  a  man  of  principle  ;  with  man  himself,  a  scholar. 
Heart,  with  the  grain  of  wood,  is  mental  bias  ;  with  a  re- 
volving wheel,  mental  concentration  ;  with  a  vassal,  shame. 
Gazelle,  with  man,  means  conjugal  union ;  with  female, 
\.  beauty;  with  eyes,  close  attention  ;  with  the  sun,  bleached. 
Heart,  with  wilderness,  is  the  maze  of  lovers'  talk.  "  The 
heart,"  says  St.  Denys,  "  was  the  graphic  root  of  almost  all 
the  original  characters  intended  to  represent  metaphysical 
ideas."  It  is  interesting  to  recall  Homer's  similar  use  of 
the  same  organ  to  represent  all  kinds  of  emotion. 

In   their  legendary  accounts   of    the  origin   of    written 


LANGUAGE.  427 

signs,  the  Chinese  naturally  emphasize  the  imitative  element. 
Letters  are  but  a  form  of  man's  closeness  to  Cosmic  Legendary 
Order.  The  eight  trigrammes  of  Fo-hi  (koua),  to  Origin> 
which  they  are  traced  back,  and  which  represent  the  male 
and  female  principles  of  that  order,  combined  in  va-  closeness 
rious  ways,  are  said  to  have  been  taken  from  the  to  Nature> 
dragon's  back.  But  before  substituting  elements  of  writing 
for  knotted  cords,  Fo-hi  has  studied  the  visible  lines  of  heaven 
and  the  products  of  earth.  Of  the  six  principles  which  he 
lays  down  as  the  basis  of  writing,  the  first  three  relate  to 
imitation  of  objects,  the  fourth  and  fifth  to  expression  of 
ideas,  and  the  last  to  the  relations  of  sounds.  Hwang-ti 
invents  figures  from  the  shapes  of  clouds  ;  his  minister, 
from  bird-tracks  on  the  sand  ;  his  successor,  from  flames 
of  fire ;  and  another,  from  the  undulations  of  water. 
Kien-lung  collected  thirty-two  different  kinds  of  writing 
believed  to  have  been  used  by  the  ancients,  and  all  illustrate 
the  absorption  of  natural  forms  into  expressions  of  human 
thought.  They  do  not  all  exhibit  actual  systems  perhaps, 
so  much  as  testify  to  the  instinct  for  putting  every  thing  in 
experience  into  written  form.  Vases,  bracelets,  serpents' 
eggs,  precious  stones,  dragon's  nails,  willow  leaves,  ears  of 
corn,  are  all  represented.  The  Dutch  in  the  seventeenth 
century  notice  the  passion  of  the  Chinese  for  imitative 
writing,  and  their  expressing  their  apprehensions  by  nat- 
ural things,  —  birds,  beasts,  and  insects.1  Figures  of  ani- 
mals, real  and  ideal,  were  embroidered  in  official  garments, 
and  official  names  given  from  the  animal  world :  such  as 
"dragon"  for  dignity,  "swan"  for  respect,  and  "pigeon" 
on  some  equally  fantastic  ground. 

But  the  close  relation  of  the  signs  to  Nature  hardly 
proves  them  to  be  good  data  for  reconstructing  primitive 
Chinese  society.  Remusat's  enthusiasm  went  to  the  ex- 
tent of  attempting  this  feat  on  palaeographical  grounds. 

1  Nieuhoff,  II.  759. 


428  STRUCTURES. 

The  effort  is  interesting,  however  unsatisfactory,  as  con- 
Attempts  taining  germs  of  a  not  unfair  picture  of  the  nation's 
character.  Of  the  supposed  primitive  signs  he  finds 
primitive  only  seven  referring  to  the  heavens,  and  infers  that 
Smthe  tne  first  Chinese  were  not  astronomical.  He  sees 
signs.  no  marks  of  metaphysics  or  theology,  none  of  the 
abstract  idea  of  God.  No  towers,  gardens,  city-walls,  king, 
or  soldier,  but  the  figure  of  a  man  bent  over,  meaning  either 
servility  or  superstition,  and  prefiguring  the  literate  or  the 
bonze  !  He  finds  no  musical  instruments,  no  money,  glass, 
or  metal,  but  several  kinds  of  weapons  ;  of  domestic  ani- 
mals, the  dog,  sheep,  pig,  and  ox  ;  of  plants,  millet,  rice, 
and  herbs.  The  improbabilities  of  this  picture  in  many 
respects  are  obvious.1  The  two  hundred  and  fourteen 
"radical"  signs  widely  differ  from  it,  though  these  can 
afford  as  little  authority  for  such  primitive  construction. 
Here  are  signs  for  metals,  weapons,  and  city ;  for  the 
cereals  and  the  plough  ^  for  musical  instruments  and  for 
pottery  ;  for  silk,  pencil,  vase ;  for  the  workman  and  for 
family  ;  for  literature,  spirits,  and  divination.  Thus  the 
"  radicals,"  though  recently  selected,  afford  a  not  inade- 
quate idea  of  the  tendencies  of  a  race  which  regards  them 
as  the  earliest  forms  of  its  written  word. 


The  merits  and  defects  of  this  remarkable  system  must 
be  estimated  by  its  relation  to  the  character  of  the  race 
whose  wants  it  supplies. 

The  comparative  fixity  of  syllabic  picture-signs  was  an 
Defects  obvious  check  to  grammatical  analysis  and  con- 
andcon-  struction.  Preventing  the  resolution  of  words 
into  their  elements,  it  forbade  their  free  modifica- 
tion by  variation  of  form  and  inflection  ;  it  forbade  their 

1  Chalmers  has  made  a  similar  attempt  to  reconstruct  the  primitive  Chinese  man  from  the 
oldest  signs,  and  to  reduce  the  ideographic  language  to  simplest  terms.  (Origin  of  the  Chi- 
nese (London,  1868),  pp.  3,  56-58  ) 


LANGUAGE.  429 

absorption  through  diminished  or  varied  emphasis,  and  their 
articulation  by  means  of  the  particles  which  such  absorption 
tends  to  produce.  The  Chinese  blocked  their  own  path  to 
such  pliability  in  the  instrument  of  language,  and  their 
nearest  approach  to  it  was  the  use  of  phonetics.  These 
were  developed  in  Egypt  into  an  alphabet.  In  China,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  laborious  process  was  continued  of 
makfng  a  new,  or  newly  combined,  character  for  every 
new  thought,  —  a  kind  of  labor  which  was  more  attractive 
to  their  tastes  than  analyzing  the  structure  of  words  or 
thoughts.  The  effect  of  this  peculiarity  "on  the  mental 
operations  is  obvious.  The  signs  are  suited  only  for  ex- 
pressing ideas  of  a  fixed  and  recognized  meaning  ;  and  the 
national  mind  must  confine  itself  to  these  ruts  of  thought 
for  which  language  is  already  provided  and  prescribed. 
But  this  is  so  conformable  to  Chinese  temperament  that 
ideography  not  only  has  never  been  thrown  aside,  but  has 
been  made  susceptible  of  conveying  very  delicate  shades  of 
feeling. 

When  the  Chinese  writes,  his  materials  are  of  such  a 
nature  that  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  he  can  be  free  Effector 
to  modify  the  stock  of  ideas  which  they  already  ^^1™- 
express.     They  stand  for  certain  wholes,  well-de-  ture. 
fined  by  association,  and  his  lines  of  thought  are  prescribed. 
There  may  be  latitude  of  choice  in  these  associations,  and 
the  structure  of  the  sentence  may  present  them  under  new 
aspects  ;  and  on  these  refinements  depend  the  subtle  ele- 
gances over  which  the  best  translators  are  at  fault  :  but  in 
the  substance  they  constantly  reappear.     It  is  therefore  in 
beautifying  the  signs,  rather  than  in  multiplying  the  ideas, 
that  the  interest  centres.     But  the  large  range  of  inference, 
allusion,  association  in  the  literary  consciousness,   Idealiza_ 
which  makes  Chinese  fine-writing  such  a  mystery  tionof 
to  the  foreigner,  is  the  atmosphere  of  the  native 
mind,  the  life  of  mutual  understanding  ;  and  of  this  the 


430  STRUCTURES. 

written  signs  are  the  alphabet.  Their  forms  are  its  ideals  ; 
their  tracing  is  "  the  dragon's  flight,  the  serpent's  dance  ; " 
"  the  lotus  bloom  in  the  lake  of  ink  ; "  *  their  combinations 
are  history  and  legend  ;  their  rhymes  and  parallel  phrases 
and  manifold  meanings  are  the  miracles  of  taste  ;  learning 
hides  in  their  intricacy,  and  in  the  subtlety  of  their  transi- 
tions caught  and  carried  on  by  rival  songsters  with  the 
pencil  ;  they  are  the  picture-book  of  the  child  and  the  art- 
gallery  of  the  nation.  In  every  sense,  they  are  the  happy 
rites  of  a  religion. 

Doubtless  th'e  persistent  use  of  picture-signs,  and  the 
Their  bear-  interest  in  connecting  writing  with  natural  forms 
nave  powerfully  reacted  on  the  concrete  realism 
which  produced  them,  by  aiding  it  to  build  up  this 
immense  industrial  civilization  with  its  wonders  of  pictorial 
art  and  delicate  workmanship  of  hand.  The  life  of  every 
people  is  a  whole,  and  its  special  tendencies  can  be  judged 
only  as  a  part  of  that  living  body.  Manifestly,  the  plan 
of  supplanting  Chinese  writing  by  some  European  alphabet 
which  seems  so  easy  to  Western  self-confidence,  or  even  that 
of  developing  an  alphabet  from  their  own  resources,  is  im- 
practicable. They  are  not  an  alphabetic  people,  nor  able 
to  recur  to  first  elements,  but  a  great  race  of  ideographers, 
their  emphasis  for  ever  flowing  to  forms  instead  of  sounds  : 
the  symbol  of  generalizing  and  synthetic,  as  alphabets  are 
of  analytic,  qualities  of  mind. 

But  this  absence  of  necessary  relation  between  the  sign 
Their  use  and  the  sound,  and  the  persistency  of  the  symbolic 
a?ame"  image,  make  the  Chinese  ideograph  a  suitable  me- 

dmm  of  in- 
tercourse,    dium    of    intercourse    between   the   Asiatic    races. 

Unattached  to  any  special  vocalism,  it  has  not  only  fur- 
nished a  common  script  for  all  the  widely  differing  dialects 

1  The  poet  manages  the  pencil  with  "the  swiftness  of  the  rain,"  and  his  ink  "  spreads  like 
a  cloud."  Its  motion  is  that  of  a  "  divine  dragon."  He  writes  a  poem  "  on  horseback,"  "  in 
seven  steps;"  "the  spread  of  a  lady's  brush  is  the  glory  of  letters."  (Julien's  Les  Fillet 
Lettrtes.) 


LANGUAGE.  431 

of  the  Empire,  read  by  every  man  in  his  own  provincial 
tongue,  but  provided  Corea,  Japan,  Annam,  Manchuria, 
with  signs  for  their  still  more  distinct  forms  of  speech, 
which  are  more  or  less  arbitrarily  connected  with  these 
developed  images  so  readily  separated  from  their  native 
meaning.  Buddhism,  the  great  literary  conductor  of  the 
K;ist,  carried  them  through  Corea  into  Japan,  associating 
in  one  free  bequest  an  alphabet  and  a  faith  :  and  syllabaries 
were  constructed  from  them ;  one  of  which,  made  from 
selected  portions  of  their  forms,  bears  a  name,  katakara 
(fragments),  that  confesses  its  lineage.1  The  full  figures 
were  also  used  phonetically,  or  with  meanings  now  of 
Chinese,  now  of  Japanese  origin,  the  latter  at  last  outnum- 
bered by  the  former.2  They  are  pronounced  in  different 
ways,  according  to  the  time  of  their  introduction,  or  the 
part  of  China  from  which  they  came.  The  Annamites  have 
taken  them,  likewise  changing  their  meanings.  Traditions 
say  that  the  old  Tunguse,  or  Manchu,  was  a  contracted 
form  of  them. 

This  adaptability  to  mutual  intercourse  is  a  mark  of  uni- 
versality that  of  itself  redeems  the  Empire  from  contrasted 
the  charge  of  self-isolation.  Spoken  languages  ^enlan. 
tend  to  atomism.  North  American  tribes  speak  guages. 
hundreds  of  dialects.  The  Caucasus  is  a  "  mountain  of 
tongues."  The  Aryan  has  split  into  a  dozen  families,  and 
each  of  these  into  troops  of  mutually  exclusive  individuali- 
ties. But  the  rigid  Chinese  ideograph  persists  in  its  law, 
and  within  its  own  race-limits  at  least  is  as  unifying  as 
processes  of  Nature,  while  of  course  unfitted  to  inspire  the 
progress  of  which  the  pliant  and  plastic  alphabet  is  the 
symbol.  De  Rosny  seriously  considers  their  fitness  for  a 
universal  language.  3 

1  De  Rosny,  Ecrit.  Fignr.  ;  Congr.  Intern,  (f  Oriental.  (1873),  II.  170. 

2  Astor's  Japanese  Grammar.     The  native  authorities  say  this  alphabet  came  earlier  by 
three  centuries,  and  De  Rosny  thinks  there  was  a  native  system  of  signs  still  older.    (Congres, 
&c.,  pp.  221,  229.) 

8  Letter  to  Oppert,  in  Archives  Paleographiqites. 


432  STRUCTURES. 

They  are  a  triumph  of  Mongolia  genius,  in  many  other 
respects  so  imperfect.     They  are  also,   as  far  as 

Originality.  \  .     .  J 

appears,  a  purely  original  product  of  the  Chinese 
people  ;  and,  while  serving  to  carry  the  literatures  of  so 
many  other  races,  seem  to  owe  nothing  to  their  aid.  We 
may  yet  learn  that  a  kindred  race  in  Western  Asia  provided 
the  common  graphic  medium  for  Persians,  Medes,  Assyrians, 
Babylonians,  and  Chaldeans. 

But  the  difficulty  of  learning  such  a  script  as  this  forbids 
any  great  extension  beyond  its  present  limits.  In 
lated.  their  actual  meanings,  too,  the  Chinese  signs  offer 
so  many  obstacles  to  European  students  that  the  con- 
fessedly bad  style  of  most  translations,  manifestly  as  poor 
Chinese  as  they  are  vernacular,  is  perhaps  natural  enough. 
It  is  a  great  mistake  to  hold  these  picture-signs,  thus  con- 
verted into  alphabetic  phrases,  responsible  for  a  pompous 
verbiage  utterly  opposed  to  the  genius  of  the  Chinese, 
whose  speciality  is  terse,  and  even  elliptical,  expression.1 
This  latter  style  is  not  only  a  result  of  the  practical  quali- 
ties of  the  national  mind,  but  proceeds  directly  from  the 
nature  of  the  signs,  whose  relations  to  one  another  must  be 
largely  supplied  by  inference  and  common  understanding, 
like  the  conversation  of  friends. 

With  all  the  expedients  devised  for  improving  it  as  a 
Defiden-  medium  of  intercourse,  the  Chinese  language  has 
cies-  inherent  defects  which  nothing  can  remove.  It 
has  not  the  sounds  of  b,  d,  v,  x,  nor  z.  Many  diphthongs 
are  unknown  to  it.  Certain  consonants  cannot  be  detached 
from  vowels.  Its  power  of  syllabic  change  and  growth  is 
extremely  small.  The  difficulties  of  representing  foreign 
words  in  a  language  unanalyzed  into  letter  sounds  are  very 
great.2  It  may  well  be  queried  whether  in  the  absence  of 
alphabetic  forms  the  Egyptians  would  have  produced  their 

1  Williams,  in  Journ,  Ch.  Br.  R.  A.  S.,  VIII.  10 ;  Meadows,  Notes,  &c..  pp.  23,  30,  39. 
8  Introd.  to  St.  Denys's  transl.  from  Matouanlin,  in  Atsuma  Gusa. 


LANGUAGE.  433 

vast  historical  and  religious  records.  And  we  are  thus 
forced  to  ascribe  to  the  Chinese,  —  in  explanation  of  their 
fertility  in  every  kind  of  literature  in  spite  of  such  defects 
in  their  instrument,  —  even  greater  productive  energies 
than  those  of  that  wonderful  people  to  whom  the  civilization 
of  the  classical  world,  and  the  shaping  of  its  great  literary 
instrument,  the  alphabet,  are  now  primarily  referred. 


IV. 
LITERATURE. 


LITERATURE. 


T 


HE  enthusiasm  of  Sir  William  Jones,  when  the  treas- 
ures of  the  Sanscrit  began  to  reveal  them-  Scopeand 
selves  a  hundred  years  ago,  was  more  than  equalled  quality. 
by  that  with  which  Abel  Remusat,  fifty  years  later,  open'ed 
the  critical  study  of  the  still  more  remote  literature  of 
China.  His  glowing  description  of  this  immense  product 
of  forty  centuries,  "  this  eloquence  and  poetry,  enriched  by 
the  beauty  of  a  picturesque  language,  which  preserves  to 
imagination  all  its  colors,"  has  in  one  respect  certainly 
failed  to  be  sustained  by  later  research.  Chinese  litera- 
ture appeals  to  the  imagination  by  its  amount,  but  makes 
little  use  of  this  faculty  in  its  constructions.  A  defective 
sense  of  the  infinite  excludes  it  from  the  sphere  of  sublim- 
ity. Such  mental  attitudes  as  depend  on  personal  isolation, 
and  on  that  sustained  self-abandonment  to  awe  and  wonder 
which  routine  and  prescription  forbid,  are  here  scarcely 
possible.  The  Chinese  eye  is  too  close  to  concrete  things 
to  get  perspective  or  background  of  space.  This  brain  is 
too  absorbed  in  details  to  confront  the  vast  problems  of 
the  free  reason,  or  to  dwell  in  mysteries  insoluble  by  the 
practical  understanding.  This  distinction  of  the  Yellow 
Race  from  the  Aryan  and  the  Shemite  is  the  more  won- 
derful, when  we  consider  what  it  has  accomplished  in  spite 
of  its  inferior  contemplative  power.  The  practical  achieve- 
ments found  packed  in  these  stiff,  isolated  signs,  in  this 
apparently  stammering  speech,  make  a  marvel  as  startling 
as  any  enchantment  of  an  Arabian  tale. 


438  STRUCTURES. 

Still  more  impressive  is  the  continued  fertility  of  a 
force  that  lacks  the  highest  elements  of  creative 
power.  Here  is  no  monumental  literature,  depend- 
ent on  pyramid,  tomb,  or  temple  to  hoard  it  up  for  ages 
beyond  its  natural  life :  the  record  is  trusted  to  tissues 
whose  evanescence  is  as  close  as  possible  to  that  of  the 
spoken  word.  Its  circulation,  for  all  it  seems  to  lack  ethe- 
real qualities,  has  grown  wider  and  swifter  with  time, 
and  it  has  freely  assimilated  with  all  social  elements.  It 
is  the  literature  of  a  race  still  pregnant,  in  full  possession 
of  its  peculiar  gifts  and  its  past  achievements.  After  forty 
centuries  of  a  strange  experience,  it  has  opened  out  from 
unpromising  shells  of  graphic  art  and  the  stranger  speech 
of  three  hundred  millions  of  living  souls  upon  the  latest 
civilization  of  the  globe,  like  the  apparition  of  a  fresh  zone 
of  continents,  or  of  a  planetary  race:  to  us  a  new  attitude 
of  man  ;  a  new  form  of  genius,  a  type  deficient  in  the  qual- 
ities hitherto  held  by  our  traditional  culture  to  be  indis- 
pensable, yet  coinciding  with  a  tendency  that  is  now 
assuming  large  proportions  in  the  Occidental  mind ;  an 
unsolicited  comment  thereon,  enhanced  by  its  age,  its 
mass,  its  variety,  its  historical  weight,  and,  we  may  add, 
its  orderly  structure  and  normal  growth. 

The  time  has  obviously  not  come  for  a  thorough  study 
of  the  colossal  theme ;  but  the  resources  already 

Resources.  .  . 

at  our  command  comprise,  beyond  question,  its 
most  typical  forms  and  forces.  It  would  be  from  our  pur- 
pose, were  it  in  our  power,  to  enter  into  the  elaborate 
catalogues  and  critical  analyses  of  Wylie  and  Schott.  No 
such  items  could  yield  any  definite  idea  of  the  spirit  of  this 
race  of  penmen  ;  though  the  mere  list  of  titles  and  divi- 
sions of  books  we  cannot  yet  read  leave  a  vague  sense  of 
immensity  and  variety  not  without  its  charm  or  its  use. 
Suffice  it  here  to  say  of  the  whole  that  this  cabala  of 
signs  is  a  perfect  die  by  which  the  whole  land  and  people 


LITERATURE.  439 

has  put  itself  into  the  form  of  written  record,  and  that  this 
record  includes  every  description  of  secular  memorial 
known  to  our  own  experience,  elaborated  by  age  after  age 
of  utilizing  effort.  Of  this  systematic  and  all-embracing 
construction  for  practical  uses,  the  Cyclopaedia  is  cycioP«- 
of  course  always,  there  as  here,  the  crowning  dias< 
result  ;  and  its  compilation  is  a  source  of  fame  which  em- 
perors may  well  have  coveted.  The  true  imperial  immor- 
tality may  be  said  to  consist  in  collecting  libraries  and 
securing  the  services  of  scholars  like  Ma-touan-lin  and 
Sse-ma-thsian  ;  sometimes  in  even  presiding,  like  Kang-hi 
and  Kien-lung,  over  the  whole  process  of  literary  enter- 
prises that  vie  in  vastness  with  the  dreams  of  Mongol 
world-conquerors,  and  infinitely  surpass  them  in  success. 
That  a  still  intenser  elaboration  is  applied  to  the  language 
itself  appears  from  the  sixty  dictionaries  enumerated  by 
Wylie ;  and  prodigious  stores  of  mathematical  and  astro- 
nomical data  testify  to  the  patient  struggles  of  this  people 
to  master  even  those  sciences  for  which  they  had  no  such 
natural  gifts  as  the  star-gazing  races  of  Assyria  and  Egypt. 
Anthologies  go  back  to  the  sixth  century  ;  and  have 
once  flowered  out  into  a  collection  of  fifty  thou-  Anthoio- 
sand  poems  from  a  single  dynasty,  upon  which  two  sies- 
thousand  compilers  were  employed.  Where  every  feature  in 
literature  is  colossal,  we  are  not  surprised  at  the  mountains 
of  commentation  that  are  said  to  have  been  piled,  during 
single  epochs,  upon  the  songs  of  more  living  ages  that  pre- 
ceded them.  Forms  of  ethical  literature  are  exhausted  ; 
and  it  may  suggest  thankfulness  that  the  difficulty  of 
mastering  the  language  is  likely  to  save  us  from  the  sud- 
den avalanche  of  didactics  which  the  nibs  of  busy  pens 
might  bring  upon  our  heads.  But  these  snows  from  Chi- 
nese mountains  would  at  least  be  immeasurably  purer 
than  the  mud  streams  that  pour  from  great  sluices  of  the 
Western  press.  And  if  the  vast  record  is  a  monument  of 


44°  STRUCTURES. 

patience  rather  than  of  genius,  it  is  at  least  not  the  dead 
handwork  of  millions,  directed  by  priesthood  and  caste, 
but  the  spontaneous  life  of  a  people. 

The  revival  of  letters  (150  B.C.)  after  the  downfall  of  the 
Extent  of  T'sin  was  the  pivot,  not  of  this  whole  literary  his- 

Revi^Tof  tory  only>  but  of  the  national  life  of  China ;  since 
Letters.  it  assured  that  supremacy  of  the  literary  class 
which  is  her  motive  force.  Out  of  that  purgation  by  fire 
arose  the  ethical  and  historical  writings  of  Confucius  in 
their  enduring  form.  The  history  of  their  recovery  will 
not  be  related  here.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  the  fires 
of  T'sin  were  far  from  effectual  in  any  department.  The 
Catalogue  of  the  Han  revival  gives  systematic  report  of 
thirteen  thousand  works  recovered  or  gathered  in  all 
branches,  comprising  those  of  nearly  two  hundred  schools 
in  philosophy,  discussing  many  of  our  own  problems  in 
civil  and  social  science,  as  well  as  covering  the  astrological 
and  divinatory  systems  which  the  developed  fetichism  of 
the  nation  had  produced.  Pan-kou,  the  compiler,  a  ration- 
alist of  the  thinking  classes,  was  not  only  without  faith  in 
these  latter  systems,  but  mourns  over  the  degeneracy  of 
his  time  amidst  the  wealth  he  records  ;  over  careless  hab- 
its of  study,  and  neglect  of  the  sages.  He  describes  the 
nine  leading  schools  as  a  reunion  of  sick  people  waiting 
a  physician  in  a  desert.  This  longing  for  the  past  is  in 
the  ordinary  tone  of  Oriental  philosophers,  and  no  more 
conclusive  against  the  value  of  the  age  he  represents  than 
the  dissatisfaction  of  a  modern  critic  whose  eye  is  on  an 
ideal  future. 

Nothing  can  be  more  characteristic  than  his  comments 
Pan-kou's  on  poetry,  of  which  his  lists  could  show  thirteen 
Report.  hundred  books  and  a  hundred  schools.  His  studies 
taught  him  that  he  was  living  in  a  poor  prosaic  age,  and  he 
longed  for  the  old  days  when  the  missives  between  States 
were  couched  in  verse,  and  statesmen  fell  into  disgrace  when 


LITERATURE.  441 

they  did  not  put  high  imagery  enough  into  their  documents. 
Had  not  Confucius  taught  that  the  best  study  for  a  public  man 
was  the  Book  of  Odes,  and  that  a  noble  style  was  impossible 
to  one  not  versed  therein  ?  Alas  !  wise  men  no  longer  used 
a  metaphoric  style  vivid  as  the  picture-signs  ;  the  poet's  song 
was  empty  and  diffuse,  and  told  neither  the  feeling  nor  the 
life  of  the  people.  Notwithstanding  this  plaintive  strain, 
in  which  Pan-kou  did  but  follow  Confucius,  there  is  devel- 
opment in  Chinese  literature.  It  is  shown  especially  in 
the  tendency  to  evolve  and  distribute  the  elements  of 
social  good. 

A  brief  sketch  of  the  literary  qualities  of    successive 
epochs    will    perhaps    make    this    evident.      The  Literary 
Tcheeu  dynasty  (1112-256  B.C.)  was  the  long  and  ^^^ 
stormy  genesis  of  natural  ethics,  transmitting  the  Ethical 
eternal  lessons  and  appeals  of  Confucius,  Mencius,  epochl 
and  Lao-tse.       The   Han  (200  B.C. -220  A.C.)  gathered  up 
the  past  into  an  epoch  of  historians.     Here  belong  the  clas- 
sic catalogues  ;    that  vast  cyclopaedia,  the  Sse-ki,  covering 
fifteen  hundred  years ;  the  reconstruction  of  the  recovered 
books  ;  the  invention  of  paper,  and  the  compilation  of  the 
old  "root  characters"  for  the  better  transmission  of  thought. 

A  period  of  Tartar  torpor  followed  in  the  north :  but 
several  southern  dynasties  collected  large  libraries,  and  the 
"  Millenary  Classic  "  was  composed,  spreading  ancient  ex- 
amples before  the  children  of  the  people  to  promote  their 
love  of  knowledge  ;  and  then,  after  the  Sui  had  prepared 
the  way  by  reuniting  the  nation,  and  put  the  old  treasures 
into  more  attractive  forms  of  writing,  came  a  fresh  age 
of  lyric  poetry,  the  immortal  days  of  the  T'ang  Lyrical 
(618-907), — the  days  when  the  State  carried  peace-  eP°ch- 
ful  sway  out  into  the  west  of  Asia,  and  learning  bloomed 
within.  History  now  began  to  be  epitomized  ;  *  the  literary 
examinations  were  fully  organized,  the  Han-lin  installed  at 

1  Schott,  p.  72. 


442  STRUCTURES. 

their  head  ;  the  Hiao-king  added  to  the  national  text-books  ; 
and  the  diffusion  and  utilization  of  knowledge  crowned  the 
labors  of  a  thousand  years.  The  fragrance  of  this  epoch 
exhaled  in  an  outpouring  of  lyric  poetry  by  a  thousand 
bards.1  Buddhist  monks  carried  classical  works  and  impe- 
rial devotions  to  bordering  lands  ;  and  Japan  had  already 
the  five  King,  the  prayers  to  Buddha,  and  seventy  other 
works  from  the  "  Central  Land."  2 

Next  came  the  engraving  of  the  classics  on  wooden 
Phiiosoph-  plates,  so  that  copies  could  be  circulated  with 
kai  epoch,  cheapness  and  speed ;  books  were  no  longer  arti- 
cles of  "  vertu,"  but  open  to  all ;  scrolls  were  superseded  by 
folded  sheets  ;  and  printing  was  invented  (tenth  century). 
It  was  natural  that  this  broadening  of  educational  currents 
should  bring  an  "  Augustan  Age  "  of  letters,  and  especially 
of  speculative  philosophy.  The  history  of  the  Soung  em- 
braces Ma-touan-lin's  great  encyclopaedia,  and  the  writings 
of  Tcheou-tsi  and  Chu-hi,  the  chiefs  of  Chinese  specula- 
tive thought.  Here,  too,  we  find  a  really  philosophical  his- 
tory, dealing  in  the  causes  and  consequences  of  events.3 

As  a  natural  expression  of  this  universality,  followed  the 
Dramatic  epoch  of  dramatic  art.  From  the  Mongol  dynasty 
epoch.  (Yuen)  comes  the  national  collection  of  the  "Hun- 
dred Plays,"  from  which  the  most  popular  pieces  have  al- 
ways been  taken,  and  which  we  have  ample  means  of  study- 
ing in  translations  by  Julien,  Davis,  Bazin,  and  Premare.4 

This  dramatic  literature  grew  up  against  the  influence 
of  the  mandarins,  and  purely  out  of  popular  impulses. 
Few  or  none  of  the  higher  classes  have  dared  to  claim 
authorship  in  these  attractive  pictures  of  common  life  and 
genial  satire,  interwoven  with  lyric  snatches  and  a  familiar 
use  of  the  old  poets  that  was  for  them  wholly  out  of  order. 

1  Williams  I.  573. 

2  Ma-touan-lin's  Border  Countries;  tr.  in  Atsuma  Gusa.  8  Schott,  p.  75. 

«  For  Bazin,  see  Vols.  XVIL-XVIII.  of  Series  No.  V.  of  Journ.  Asiat.  For  Prepare, 
see  Duhalde's  C&tna,  &c. 


LITERATURE.  443 

The  Mongols  brought  their  latitudinarianism  to  letters. 
The  capital  was  alive  with  translators,  and  the  provinces 
with  linguists,  constructing  alphabets,  collecting  data, 
circulating  books.  Kub-lai's  empire  was  the  widest  ever 
known  :  he  was  the  gatron  of  all  races  and  all  religions,  and 
his  Royal  Academy  was  the  combined  culture  of  the  east ; 
in  some  respects  of  the  west  also.  At  his  instance  a 
Buddhist  monk  (Pa-sse-pa)  attempted  a  new  set  of  alpha- 
betic signs1  for  transcribing  literature  into  all  tongues; 
and  they  were  introduced  by  edict  into  the  schools  and 
civil  service  of  China.  The  people  listened  more  willingly 
to  the  exhortations  in  behalf  of  their  schools,  than  to  the 
transference  of  their  literary  interests  to  a  strange  body  of 
signs.  Pa-sse-pa's  alphabet  was  a  failure. 

The  Mings  signalized  the  recovery  of  the  empire  into 
native  hands  by  gathering  up  the  whole  harvest  of  cyclopedic 
the  past.  An  imperial  library  of  three  hundred  epoch, 
thousand  volumes  contained  histories  of  all  the  The  Mings* 
dynasties,2  and  a  full  consciousness  of  nationality  busily 
resumed  all  the  stages  of  literary  achievement.  It  was  the 
age  of  collectors  and  commentators,  gifted  with  that  minute- 
ness of  detail  study  which  sifts  every  mass  into  the  atomic 
state  most  fit  for  currency  and  use.  The  best  science  and 
culture  of  Europe  was  welcomed  in  the  Jesuit  Fathers. 
The  history  of  cosmogonic  philosophy  was  compiled  in  the 
school  of  Chu-hi.3  The  national  code  of  jurisprudence 
was  presented  in  full  order  and  detail  ;  and  the  first  great 
description  of  the  whole  Empire  published  from  minute 
surveys  (1587). 

So  steadily  had  literature  advanced  to  broader  and  more 
popular  forms,  when  the  terrible  wars  that  brought  the 


1  From  the   Hindu  Devanagari.      See  Pauthier  on  the  Mongol  Alphabet  of  Pa-sse-pa, 
in  Journ.  Asia*.,  Jan.,  1862. 

»  See  Zeittch.  d.  D.  M.  G.  I.,  117. 
»  The  Tsingli-ta-tsmen. 


444  STRUCTURES. 

Manchus  upon  the  land  threatened  destruction  to  all  this 
Epoch  of  fr"1^  °f  tne  ages.  But  the  Tunguse  of  the  north 
diffusion,  proved  apt  pupils  of  the  civilization  which  had  been 
their  nurse  from  the  beginning.  No  race  in  Asia  would 
have  been  better  fitted  to  comprehend  ajid  carry  out  the  best 
elements  of  Chinese  culture.  The  Emperors  of  the  T'sing 
(Pure)  line  were  for  a  century  and  a  half  among  the  best  and 
ablest  rulers  that  ever  occupied  thrones.  Down  to  the  strife 
and  demoralization  that  have  never  ceased  since  the  interven- 
tion of  European  trade  and  religion,  they  held  China  at  her 
highest  level.  Three  of  them  were  in  the  foremost  rank  of 
scholars,  and  four  were  munificent  friends  of  letters  in  the 
most  practical  forms.  Such  works  as  Kang-hi's  Imperial 
Dictionary,  a  joint  production  of  seventy-six  scholars,  a 
Universal  History  in  sixty  volumes,  a  complete  description 
of  China  (1/44),  enlargements  of  the  old  cyclopaedias, 
translations  into  Manchu,  and  systematic  Blue-books,  are 
instanced  as  marks  of  the  construction  of  materials  old 
and  new  going  on  in  the  present  dynasty,  and  show  how 
universal  are  its  aims.  The  record  we  have  traced  receives 
its  crown  in  this  tribute  of  a  foreign  master  to  the  popular 
tendencies  of  letters  in  China.  Converted  into  museum, 
academy,  library,  popular  literature  and  social  resource,  and 
surrounded  with  all  the  dignity  that  the  present  can  throw 
over  the  past,  the  noble  national  outfit  presents  itself  with 
the  appearance  of  the  nation  on  the  field  of  modern  thought. 
This  steady  expansion  of  letters  into  more  and  more 
stages  of  diffusive  forms,  this  large  respect  for  past  stages 
progress.  of  growth,  this  persistent  revisal  and  readaptation, 
combine  with  moral  excellence  to  prove  the  normal  and 
healthful  quality  of  Chinese  development.  The  elements 
of  universality  in  the  process  will  be  brought  out  in  the 
further  course  of  our  review  :  those  specially  relating  to 
literature  will  now  be  considered  in  the  light  of  materials 
already  amply  sufficient  for  a  fair  estimate. 


LITERATURE.  445 

The  simplicity  and  directness  which  would  naturally 
characterize  a  literature  expressed  by  pictorial  THH 
signs  are  very  conspicuous  in  the  Chinese  dramas.  DRAMA. 
With  laconic  bareness  the  plot  moves  straight  on,  undis- 
turbed by  the  play  of  fancy  or  reflection  ;  sometimes  with 
a  rapidity  that,  for  us,  would  turn  tragedy  into  grotesque- 
ness.  Scarce  a  line  could  be  lost  without  breaking  the 
thread,  which  is  always  continuous  and  clearly  traceable, 
however  complex  the  situation.  The  tracks  are  mainly 
prescribed.  Certain  prominent  traits  and  classes  in  real 
life  are  constantly  repeated,  and  the  ruts  in  which  medita- 
tions run  seem  to  be  their  title  to  respect  Even  the  solilo- 
quy seldom  leads  to  subtle  springs  of  motive,  or  rises  above 
the  interests  and  facts  in  hand.  Individuality,  the  fulness 
and  flavor  of  the  Western  novel  or  play,  is  wanting ;  and 
the  scene  is  a  level  steppe,  not  mountain,  valley,  and  in- 
dented shore.  The  pedantry  of  the  academic  essays,  which 
has  brought  so  much  discredit  on  Chinese  letters,  has  no 
place  in  the  drama,  and  is  not  regarded  with  respect.  The 
plain  and  earnest  diction  of  the  dramatic  masterpieces  is 
their  real  charm.  They  satirize  pedantry  as  "  gnawing  let- 
ters and  licking  characters,"  or  "  putting  sables  on  a  dog's 
back."  Under  such  sedate  simplicity  of  purpose  the  ob- 
vious and  commonplace  itself  becomes  in  a  sense  ideal. 

No  nation  has  such  a  store  of  plays  in  constant  use,  al- 
though, from  causes  already  mentioned,  comedians  have  suf- 
fered contempt,  and  have  even  been  persecuted  by  special 
edict.  Many  plays  have  been  written  by  women,  though 
the  sex  is  forbidden  to  act,  and  the  female  parts  are  taken 
by  boys. 

Dramatic    literature  has  obeyed    forces    stronger   than 
imperial  edict  or  social  prudery,  and  its  productive   its  pro- 
power  went  on  increasing  from  the  T'ang  (eighth  ductivity- 
century)  to  its  culmination  in  the  You-en  (fourteenth  cen- 
tury), when  the  drama  was  cultivated  by  literary  people  of 


44^  STRUCTURES. 

both  sexes.1  Still  later,  the  great  Manchu,  Kien-lung,  did 
not  share  the  prejudices  of  his  scholars,  who  are  said  to 
have  excluded  plays  from  his  library  :  he  even  took  a 
player  for  a  second  wife.  This  passion  for  the  stage  has 
grown  with  time :  the  superstitions  of  Buddhists  and  Tao- 
sse  have  furnished  machinery,  and  the  history  of  China  is 
quarried  for  material.  Such  is  the  force  of  nationality  in 
the  popular  mind.2  Plays  are  the  cheapest  things  circu- 
lated, and  are  even  sometimes  used  as  currency.3  Troops 
of  comedians  are  in  demand,  on  all  occasions,  from  rude 
country/"/^  to  city  dinners,  court  receptions,  and  public 
and  private  re-unions. 

The   drama   is    still   in   the  prose   of   narration,  nor   is 
comedy   distinct   from  tragedy.     Its   structure   is 

Structure.  J  J 

primitive,  the  personages  not  being  brought  out 
through  the  skilful  play  of  action,  but  reporting  directly  to 
the  audience  their  own  traits  and  interests  and  the  part  they 
are  to  take  ;  often  with  absurd  frankness.  Unities  of  time 
and  place  are  little  regarded.  The  action,  like  the  language, 
is  elliptical,  and  leaves  much  to  mutual  understanding. 
Declamations  by  the  hero,  studded  with  quotations  and 
invocations,  take  the  place  of  dramatic  evolution.  Wher- 
ever feeling  is  expected,  enter  a  singer  ;  if  a  hero  is  about 
to  slay  a  villain  or  to  commit  suicide,  he  sings.4  These 
rhymed  explosions  scatter  allusions  and  associations,  packed 
in  the  elliptic  phrase  as  in  a  shell,  which  translators  find  it 
hard  to  crack.5 

Chinese  dramas  have  usually  an  ethical  purpose.  Like 
Ethical  the  histories  and  the  political  writings,  they  gerier- 
purpose.  auv  assert  poetic  justice.  Elaborate  villanies,  of- 
ten woven  into  a  complex  web  which  betrays  sad  famili- 

1  Ampere,  Science  en  Orient,  p.  227.  Eighty-one  litterateurs  are  mentioned  as  authors 
of  four  hundred  and  forty-eight  plays. 

*  Historical  plays  have  always  been  specially  popular  in  England,  Germany,  and  France. 

8  Girard,  II.  301.  4  See  especially  The  Orphan  of  Tcheou. 

5  Yet  Julien  (Introduction  to  Les  Jeunes  Filles  Lettrees)  intimates  that  his  predecessors 
have  made  too  much  of  these  difficulties,  which  arise  often  from  the  differences  of  style  in  differ- 
ent epochs.  For  an  account  of  the  Chinese  theatre,  see  Girard's  France  et  Chine,  II.  284-300. 


LITERATURE.  447 

arity  with  crime,  are  constructed  so  as  by  their  natural 
consequences  to  justify  the  righteous  side  through  whatso- 
ever sufferings  they  cause.  The  Penal  Code  says  the  end 
of  the  stage  is  "to  offer  true  or  supposed  pictures  of  just 
men,  chaste  women,  and  obedient  children,  who  may  inspire 
the  spectators  to  the  practice  of  virtue."  Nowhere  is  the 
marriage  tie  disparaged,  amidst  the  satire  that  assails  all 
classes  and  sects.  The  national  reverence  for  those  natu- 
ral relations  on  which  society  is  based  is  always  treated 
with  respect.  Gratitude,  defence  of  the  wronged,  humanity, 
power  of  "the  right  way"  to  deliver  from  life-weariness 
and  despair,  are  all  enforced  in  special  plays.1 

These  inventions  throw  familiar  ethical  light  over  the 
actual  working  of  Chinese  beliefs  and  institutions,  The  drama 
and  suggest  ideal  relations  in  the  dilemmas,  incon-  a0fo^r°f 
gruities,  conflicts  of  duty,  freaks  of  circumstance,  seif-criti- 
that  arise  in  carrying  out  established  principles.  cism' 
These  collisions  are  very  ingeniously  and  honestly  treated. 
The  Chinese  drama  is  a  thorough  self-criticism  by  the  social 
consciousness  of  the  people.  It  prefers  the  materials  of 
actual  history  to  free  creations  of  imagination.  It  completes 
the  bald  annals  by  giving  the  form  and  features  of  ages, 
whereof  these  yield  only  the  facts  and  names.  No  pictures 
of  manners  can  be  more  vivid  than  those  in  the  plays  of 
the  Youen.  The  writers  have  a  keen  eye  for  the  faults  of 
classes  and  schools  of  official  and  domestic  life.  In  preva- 
lent forms  of  juggling  and  superstition,  they  find  no  end  of 
comic  situations  and  strange  adventure.  It  was  in  the 
popular  taste  for  burlesque  and  good-natured  farce  that  the 
Chinese  drama,  like  the  Greek  and  Roman,  found  its  first 
impulse.  And  this  is  the  character  of  most  plays  previous 
to  the  Youen,  when  history  became  more  popularized,  and 
was  treated  on  the  stage  in  a  more  serious  manner.2  The 

1  See  The  Deliverance  of  T' sien-hao  (Journ-  As.,  1851),  Dream  of  Lin-thong-pin,  Ibid. 
*  Especially  in   the  San-koue-tchi,  and  the   Judgments  of  Pao-tching,   a  collection  of 
Causes  Ctlebres  ;  see  Bazin,  Journ.  As.,  Feb.  and  Mar.,  1851. 


STRUCTURES. 

plots  are  apt  to  turn  on  criminal  trials,  and  their  contrasts 
of  iniquity  and  equity.  Comedies  of  intrigue  open  the 
secrets  of  the  court  and  the  harem,  and  all  mazes  of  oppor- 
tunity for  craft  and  crime  in  social  life.  Naturally  little 
use  is  made  of  mythology,  except  in  connection  with  the 
Tao-sse. 

A  na'fve  mixture  of  noble  purpose  with  barbarous  policy 
Naive  com-  often  testifies  to  fatal  necessities  involved  in  estab- 
binations.  lighgd  customs  and  institutions,  which  is  not  with- 
out its  analogy  to  the  fate  tragedies  of  Greece.  In  the 
"  Orphan  of  the  Family  of  Tcheou,"  a  Chinese  "  Slaughter  of 
the  Innocents  "  by  edict  aimed  at  the  destruction  of  a  right- 
ful heir  to  the  throne,  results  in  a  generous  rivalry  between 
two  old  faithful  functionaries  as  to  which  should  be  given 
over  to  the  Government  by  the  other  as  guilty  of  secreting 
the  prince,  for  whom  the  child  of  one  of  them  is  to  be 
substituted  and  surrendered  to  death.  It  is  finally  decided 
that  one  of  these  heroes  shall  give  his  child,  the  other  his 
life ;  the  true  heir  is  then  brought  up  by  the  survivor,  sent 
in  due  time  to  court,  adopted  by  the  cruel  minister  who 
has  full  sway  in  the  empire,  and  at  last  informed  of  the 
whole  truth.  The  terrible  duty  of  retribution  laid  upon 
him  is  immediately  fulfilled.1 

The  "  Sorrows  of  Han"2  uses  the  custom  of  Eastern 
conquerors  to  exact  from  their  rivals  the  tribute 

The     Sor-  x 

rows  of  of  the  most  beautiful  among  their  wives,  as  a  set- 
ting for  a  striking  picture  of  self-abandonment  to 
loyalty  and  honorable  love.  A  stronger  protest  against  the 
degradation  of  woman  can  hardly  be  imagined  than  is  con- 
densed into  the  amazing  terseness  of  this  little  tragedy. 
The  ruler's  effeminacy  bringing  the  empire  to  the  feet  of 
its  enemies  ;  the  corrupt  official  banished  for  having  kept 
a  maiden  from  her  rightful  place  as  queen  of  the  harem,  in 

1  This  is  said  to  have  a  basis  in  history  ;  the  play  is  translated  by  Primare.    See  Duhalde. 
*  Transl.  by  Davis. 


LITERATURE.  449 

revenge  for  her  father's  refusing  to  purchase  his  favor  ;  his 
scheme  for  turning  her  over  to  the  Tartar  ;  the  arrogant 
demand  of  this  chieftain  for  her  person  on  seeing  her  por- 
trait ;  the  anguish  of  the  Emperor,  her  self-devotion  to 
save  him  and  bring  peace  to  her  country ;  her  struggle 
with  her  affection,  and  his  recognition  of  its  worth  ;  her 
delivery  to  the  Khan,  and  her  death  by  suicide,  calling  on 
the  name  of  her  husband  :  "  Emperor  of  Han,  this  life  is 
over  ;  I  await  thee  in  that  which  is  to  come,"  —  combine  to 
show  what  moral  appreciation  can  be  maintained  amidst 
tyranny  and  barbarism,  to  centre  in  womanly  virtues.  The 
simplicity  of  this  play  is  suggestive  of  parables,  or  a  child's 
story  of  what  he  saw  and  heard.  The  dramatic  quality  is 
another  matter,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  so  rapid  a 
movement  and  so  meagre  a  show  can  at  all  interest  an 
assembly.  Yet  the  picture  of  the  Tartar  horde  in  the 
desert  is  effective  ;  and  touches  of  nature  are  not  wanting, 
as  when  the  victim  casts  away  her  robes,  remembering  how 
close  beauty  is  to  bitter  fate :  "  To-day  in  the  palace  of 
the  Han,  to-morrow  given  to  a  stranger ; "  and  when  the 
wretched  monarch,  dreaming  that  she  comes  back  and  is 
again  snatched  away,  awakes  to  hear  the  wild  fowl's  scream, 
and  asks  :  "  Can  it  know  there  is  one  so  desolate  as  I  ? " 

The  "  Heir  in  Old   Age  " 1  sets  forth  family  reconcilia- 
tion at  the  ancestral  graves,  and  traces  mischiefs 

r  •    •  11-  Heir 

that  grow  out  of  the  superstition  that  a  male  heir  in  oid 
is  indispensable  to  these  oblations,  when  it  is  ag-  Age<" 
gravated  by  polygamic  jealousies  and  intrigues. 

Popular  superstitions  are  wont  to  show  a  half-conscious- 
ness of  their  own  folly,  and  good-humoredly  satirize  them- 
selves in  dramatic  form.     This  is  as  noticeable  in  Chinese 
as  in  mediaeval  Christian  plays.     "  The  Transmigra-  Popular 
tion  of  Yo-cheou  "  2  figures  the  machinery  of  the 
Tao-sse  hells,  with  their  oil-cauldrons  for  boiling  i"d. 

1  Transl.  by  Davis.  •  Journ,  As.,  April  and  May,  1)851. 

29 


45O  STRUCTURES. 

sinners,  and  the  politeness  of  the  officers  to  pious  folk  who 
intercede  for  them  and  get  them  sent  back  to  life  in  other 
bodies,  and  the  odd  jumble  and  fracas  that  would  come  of 
transferring  the  consciousness  of  one  person  into  the  out- 
ward form  of  another. 

The  "  Love-sick  One " 1  satirizes  the  two  souls  in  one 
person,  bodily  and  spiritual,  of  popular  belief  ;  the  one 
staying  in  the  maiden's  body  at  home,  the  other  following 
her  lover  to  the  wars,  and  brought  back  by  him  as  his  whole 
wife,  to  the  natural  consternation  of  her  other  part ;  to  be 
appeased  only  by  the  equally  amazing  re-conjunction  of  the 
two  souls ! 

In  one  play  Sakya  Buddha  appears  as  a  fat  priest,  who 
makes  everybody  laugh,  and  prints  his  doctrine  on  people's 
hands,  in  the  word  patience.  In  another,  a  youth  caught 
by  cannibals  is  released  on  parole,  and,  returning  to  be 
eaten,  constrains  them  by  philosophical  demonstrations  to 
let  him  go.  A  third  brings  the  horse  and  the  ass  of  a 
priest  into  pitying  conversation  over  the  lot  of  poor  fel- 
lows who  die  insolvent :  "  Tis  the  reason,"  adds  the  horse, 
»"that  I  am  now  carrying  this  priest,  who  is  my  old 
creditor." 

All  the  qualities  we  have  noted  are  combined  in  the 

"  Circle  of  Chalk,"  2  where  innocence  is  vindicated 

"circle      by  the  death  of  its  persecutors,  not  through  forms 

of  chaik."   Q£  jaw^  kut  though  appeal  of  laws   to  ordeals    of 

natural  feeling.  It  strikes  at  the  domestic  evils  caused  by 
polygamy.  The  heroine,  lifted  out  of  habits  of  prostitution 
enforced  by  her  mother  by  reason  of  poverty,  and  becom- 
ing the  second  wife  of  a  rich  man,  is  hated  by  the  first, 
who  covers  a  liaison  of  her  own  by  poisoning  her  husband. 
Charged  by  this  vile  woman  with  the  murder,  she  is  brow- 
beaten and  tortured  by  the  paramour  himself  into  con- 
fession, and  this  by  permission  of  the  magistrate ;  while 

1  Journal  As  fatigue,  June,  1851.  2  Transl.  by  Julien. 


LITERATURE.  45  I 

paid  perjurers  swear  that  she  is  not  the  mother  of  her  own 
child.  As  usual,  in  capital  cases,  the  matter  is  brought 
for  rejudgment  before  a  higher  court,  where  an  upright 
judge  unexpectedly  appeals  to  Solomon's  test ;  the  rival 
claimants  being  bidden  to  drag  the  child  out  of  a  circle  of 
chalk  in  opposite  directions,  the  real  mother  is  of  course 
discovered,  and  all  the  criminals  are  put  to  death. 

The  play  deals  freely  with  official  misconduct.  Arbitrary 
proceedings  in  one  court  are  contrasted  with  the  careful 
justice  of  the  other ;  showing  how  entirely  the  issue  de- 
pended on  the  character  of  the  judge,  not  on  the  law. 
Torture  is  arraigned  in  the  sufferer's  cry :  "  Overcome  by 
pain,  I  am  forced  to  confess  crimes  I  never  committed." 
Nor  is  the  marriage  system  spared  :  "  Alas !  these  legal 
wives,"  sighs  the  handmaid  of  the  harem,  "  enrage  their 
husbands  against  us,  and  sacrifice  us  to  their  anger  and 
suspicions."  Yet  the  difference  between  prostitution  and 
legal  concubinage  in  China  is  shown  in  the  satisfaction 
with  which  the  maiden  contemplates  her  escape  from  the 
one  into  the  other  position,  in  a  soliloquy  whose  language 
would  equally  serve  for  a  person  raised  out  of  a  life  of  deg- 
radation into  recognized  respectability  in  a  Christian  land. 

It  has  been  said  that  all  Chinese  history  has  become 
the  material  of  romance  ;  a  compensation,  we  may  R 
suggest,  for  the  bald   and  monotonous    character 
of   its   narrative.      But   the   fancy  clings    to  solid  special  art 
ground  of  fact,  and  runs  easily  into  didactics.     As  ™edt^lcal 
in    the   dramas,  so  in   the  romances,  rapid   move- 
ment of  situations  and  events  works  up  a  crowd  of  details 
into  poetic  justice  and  ideal  good.     The  art  of  these  story- 
tellers consists   in  making  this   purpose  assume  a   provi- 
dential control,  —  building  circumstances  to  suit  itself,  and 
curiously  combining  the  nai've  and   the  conventional,  old 
head  and  baby  tongue.     Their  matter  mainly  concerns  the 


452  STRUCTURES. 

conflict  of  moral  ideals  with  the  practical  working  of  Chi- 
nese society  and  institutions.  The  romances  are  a  popular 
re-action  on  organized  traditions, —  on  laws,  customs,  and 
social  arrangements.  They  criticise  social  evils,  generally 
with  an  evident  faith  in  better  foundations.  Their  frank 
confession  of  these  evils,  without  bitterness  or  contempt, 
indicates  a  kind  of  higher  assurance,  preserved,  with  the 
force  of  a  religious  instinct,  in  the  real  substance  of  human 
nature  and  life.  The  inevitableness  of  penalty  runs  through 
the  minutest  net-work  of  intrigue  ;  and  this  moral  judicial- 
ism,  however  prosaic,  is  as  trenchant  and  thorough  as 
Hebrew  prophecy.  It  is  a  rationalistic  faith  which  my- 
thology itself  does  not  disturb.  "  The  Family  Portrait  " 
shows  a  just  judge  using  a  pretence  of  supernatural  know- 
ledge, but  it  is  in  order  to  detect  a  wrong  by  means  of  the 
superstition  of  the  wrong-doer.1 

These  severe  ethics  are  genial ;  and,  with  all  the  preach- 
ing tone,  each  personage  is  suffered  to  tell  his  story 
genilnty.  in  his  own  way,  and  stands  in  his  own  right.  There 
Examples,  fe  no  jack  of  humor,  and  a  finer  sense  of  personal 
relations  is  nowhere  to  be  found  than  in  these  blooms  of 
Chinese  life.  The  tale  of  the  "  Two  Brothers  of  Different 
Sex"  2  is  an  idyl  of  love  in  every  form,  —  of  mutual  affection 
between  youths,  ripening  into  a  tenderness  scarcely  in- 
creased by  the  discovery  that  they  can  be  united  in  a  closer 
tie ;  of  humanity  in  an  old  couple,  who  pick  up  these  waifs 
from  wrecks,  and  give  them  homes  and  training  ;  of  filial 
piety,  rich  in  gratitude  and  loving  cares,  —  the  whole  a 
charming  comment  on  the  patriarchal  ideal. 

"The  Visit  of  the  Hearth  God"3  enforces  the  lesson 
that  outward  conformities  do  not  purify  the  heart  nor 
save  from  evil. 

"  The  History  of  the  Shores "  is  the  great  quarry  of 

1  Transl.  in  Journ.  R.  A.  S.,  i.  308.  *  Transl.  by  Julicn. 

3  Transl.  by  Julien. 


LITERATURE.  453 

genial  humor.  Its  hundreds  of  intrigues  and  characters 
are  all  imaginary,  though  located  in  the  age  preceding  the 
Mongol  invasion,  and  its  picture  of  manners  is  of  the 
sharpest  cut.  The  popular  proverb,  coupling  it  with 
another  more  historical  romance  of  the  Youen  time,  says 
of  an  ignoble  age  :  "  The  young  do  not  read  the  San-koue- 
tchi,  nor  the  old  the  Chou-i."  l  The  situations  abound  in 
oddity,  and  the  satire  is  fully  worked  out ;  as  in  the  initia- 
tion of  a  burly  rogue  into  the  Buddhist  priesthood,  who, 
cheating  the  simple  monks,  yet  comprehends  nothing  him- 
self, saying  of  the  five  rules  :  "  Oh  yes  !  I  am  a  good  toper, 
and  will  keep  them  in  mind."  Even  here  the  moral  law  is 
not  forgotten  ;  and  there  are  fine  pictures  of  the  strength 
of  virtue,  and  its  mastery  over  temptation  and  supernatu- 
ral terrors. 

The  San-koue-tchi  ("  Three  Warring  Kingdoms  ")  is  the 
heroic  romance  of  China,  which  "  every  wise  man  The 
will  have   read,  at   least    once;"2   crowded  with  "Three 
legends   of   the  civil  wars,  and  traditions  of   the  King- 
witchcraft  and  spiritism  of  the  Tao-sse,    it  is  all  doms-" 
quite  in  contrast  with  the  conventional  structure  most  com- 
mon in  the  tales,  where  a  few  types,  deficient  in  shadowing 
and  balance,  but  representative  of  Chinese  uniformity,  con- 
stantly reappear,  charming   the   national  taste  for  recur- 
rence and  repetition. 

"  The  Death  of  Tong-tcho  "  3  turns  on  vicious  adminis- 
tration and  the  terrible  penalties  of  parricide  and  cruelty. 
Again  we  have  the  appeal  for  rectification  of  wrong-* 
doing,  not  to  the  processes  of  law,  but  to  shrewd  plot  and 
contrivance,  by  which  alone  criminals  appear  to  be  man- 
ageable. It  is  surprising  to  find  the  defence  of  innocence 
so  dependent,  in  an  empire  of  laws,  on  personal  wits  and 
sharp  practice.  The  result  is  a  lenient  treatment  of  petty 

1  Extended  extracts   from   the   Chou-i  are  given   in  Bazin's  Tabl.  Hist,  de  la  Litt.  de 
V Youen;  Jour.  As.  1850,  1851. 

2  Introd.  LIV.,  transl.  by  Pavie,  1845.  3  Tr.  by  Julian  from  the  San-koue-tchi. 


454  STRUCTURES. 

falsehood  and  trickery,  when  resorted  to  in  self-defence  or 
for  good  ends,  while  offences  against  the  great  social  rela- 
tions are  severely  dealt  with. 

In  "  The  Fortunate  Union," 1  two  lives  made  for  each 
"The  other  are  kept  apart  by  a  long  series  of  villanous 
Fortunate  plots,  by  legal  and  illegal  means,  all  of  which  their 
Honor  to  personal  qualities  turn  back  upon  the  assailants, 
woman.  j^  ^Q  good  and  evil  of  laws  and  customs  are 
brought  fully  into  the  struggle  ;  and  the  purport  is  to  show 
that  character  must  depend  on  its  own  mental  and  moral 
resources,  not  on  these  outward  defences.  In  this  fate- 
drama  of  the  Chinese  sort,  the  right  of  virtue  to  rule 
events  is  cast  on  a  national  scale.  The  worst  abuses  of 
legal  and  family  authority,  the  exposure  of  reputation  and 
safety  to  every  form  of  assault,  the  power  of  institutions 
to  victimize  the  weak,  find  their  only  antagonist  in  the 
energies  of  an  ideal  woman. 

"  No  match  proved  they  for  her  intelligence  : 
The  calumny  that  hung  upon  her  name 
Proved  her  of  flowers  the  fairest ;  she  walked 
Firm  and  alone,  without  support  or  aid." 

Wile  conquers  wile ;  learning  refutes  ignorance  ;  uncon- 
scious purity  puts  espionage  to  shame ;  and  calumny  fades 
before  a  sensitiveness  of  personal  honor  that  astounds  the 
common  experience.  No  severer  criticism  on  the  public 
management  of  personal  rights  can  be  imagined  than  the 
,  necessity  laid  on  such  a  character  to  resort  to  small  de- 
ceits to  save  its  honor.  "  Where,"  she  asks,  "  was  the 
protection  of  the  laws  ?  Where  the  restraints  of  public 
opinion  ?  Where  the  succor  of  nearest  relatives  ?  "  Her 
solitary  struggle,  perhaps,  comes  as  near  to  the  morally 
sublime  as  Chinese  literature  has  arrived. 

The  story  shows  clearly  that  the  marriage  law  in  China  is 
monogamic,  and  that  the  position  of  the  "concubine"  was 

1  Transl.  by  Davis  (Hao-khieou-tchouen\ 


LITERATURE.  45  5 

secondary.  The  most  profligate  suitor  does  not  pretend 
to  attempt  marriage  without  having  his  previous  union  set 
aside  by  law.  Still  more  interesting  is  the  hero's  protest 
against  marrying  by  the  choice  of  his  parents,  on  the 
ground  that  this  is  a  union,  not  of  friendship  only,  but  "  for 
life  ; "  and  the  heroine's  question  addressed  to  an  arbitrary 
uncle  :  "  Who  shall  compel  me  to  marry  against  my  wish  ?  " 
Her  father  refuses  to  meddle  with  her  right  of  choice  ; 
and  the  bridegroom  at  the  wedding  treats  her  with  venera- 
tion. The  tables  are  curiously  turned  on  "  filial  piety  "  by 
the  hero's  lecturing  his  father,  an  imperial  censor,  on  offi- 
cial duties.  It  is  refreshing  to  be  assured,  in  China,  that 
"old  prescriptions  were  not  made  for  those  who  can  do 
right  by  force  of  their  own  minds;"  and  that  "  he  who 
would  let  another  perish,  for  a  point  of  form,  would  be 
brutal;"  that  "one  may  be  content,  if  he  can  keep  his 
heart  free  from  taint,"  and  that  "virtue  has  its  own  lati- 
tude and  measure."  Under  threats  of  legalized  cruelty, 
the  lady  declares  that  "  the  Emperor  himself  could  not 
force  rectitude  to  degrade  itself."  The  imprisoned  censor 
is  sustained  by  an  inward  witness  that  he  is  "  clothed  with 
integrity." 

"  A  single  thought,  unworthy  the  occasion, 
Had  earned  the  censure  of  a  thousand  years." 

The  young  student,  deprived  of  his  betrothed,  is  re- 
strained from  self-destruction  by  the  thought  that  his 
mother  would  be  left  childless.  "  While  the  father's  wish 
is  still  untold,  the  daughter's  love  already  understands  it ; 
as  when,  on  the  approach  of  spring  as  yet  afar  off,  the  Mei- 
tree  puts  forth  a  southward  bud."  She  advises  her  lover 
to  forgive  his  persecutor  fallen  into  his  power,  in  view  of 
his  possible  provocation,  and  of  his  toils  in  acquiring  his 
position.  She  sets  him  upon  curing  a  boisterous  demeanor, 
and  charms  him  by  showing  herself  not  only  a  benefactor, 
but  the  wisest  of  counsellors.  From  her  he  learns  self- 


STRUCTURES. 

reliance  and  the  love  of  serious  study  without  ulterior  ends. 
Her  learning,  prudence,  delicate  insight  and  wit,  confound 
all  enemies,  and  anticipate  and  solve  every  emergency. 
Her  inviolate  modesty  is  thus  described  :  — 

"  With  faintly  opening  cup,  its  fragrance  but  half  concealed, 
'Tis  like  some  half-told  sorrow,  drooping  on  delicate  stalk.'' 

The  sexes  are  equal  in  capacities  and  in  dignity  :  "  Where 
sense  and  spirit  beam,  they  adorn  each  sex  alike."  1  The 
daughter  is  entrusted  with  her  father's  affairs,  and  "  supplies 
the  place  of  a  son."  "  Brought  up  in  tender  female  seclu- 
sion, she  is  more  delicate  than  a  web  of  silk,  but  can  show 
talent  and  resolution  beyond  many  men."  The  novelist 
concludes  that 

"  Reason's  highway  is  straight  and  plain,  unlike  devious  paths  of  the 

wicked, 

Did  not  a  faultless  heroine  sometimes  shine,  Virtue's  great  cause 
entirely  would  fail." 

"Ask  ye  why  sovereign  Heaven  thus  vexes  mortals?  'Tis  to  try 
their  hearts,  like  metal  in  the  fiery  crucible."  .... 

"  The    unblown   flower    exhales   no   sweets ;    the   gem,   unpolished, 

shines   not  ; 

Did  not  the  winter's  cold  once  penetrate  its  stem,  how  could  the 
blossom  emit  such  fragrance.  " 

The  protest  against  corrupt  officialism  and  the  barbari- 
ties of  courts  is  startling.  The  hero  has  to  compel  justice 
by  breaking  through  all  forms,  thundering  down  the  wicked 
judge,  and  arresting  criminals  with  a  high  hand.  But  the 
purity  of  the  higher  courts  is  fully  recognized  as  protecting 
the  innocent,  and  rectifying  all  wrongs  down  to  the  least ; 
honors  flow  from  imperial  hands  upon  these  protestants 
against  all  Chinese  ills,  and  are  reflected  on  their  parents 
in  national  gratitude  for  bestowing  such  examples  on  the 
people. 

1  The  same  idea  pervades  the  Young  Female  Scholars,  translated  into  French  by  Julien, 
and  is  common  in  Chinese  novels. 


LITERATURE.  457 

Lay  has  said  with  truth  that  Chinese  stories  abound  in 
examples  of  love  that  knows  no  limit. l  As  we  Love  and 
might  expect,  there  is  abundance  of  sentimen-  friendship, 
tality,  and  of  desperate  conjuncture  from  which  suicide 
is  the  only  escape ;  results  of  a  popular  taste  for  extrava- 
gance like  that  which  has  given  French  fiction  an  equal 
currency  in  the  West.  But  the  high-wrought  situations 
point  to  social  defects,  and  are  offset  by  a  loyalty  in  love 
and  friendship  which  assures  us  that  these  sentiments 
have  stood  unshaken.  The  influence  of  woman  is  usually 
elevated,  and  more  productive  of  good  than  in  correspond- 
ing tales  of  European  origin.  In  the  "  Two  Female  Schol- 
ars," 2  the  Emperor,  presiding  at  the  union  of  the  two 
heroes  and  heroines,  says  :  "  Now  that  I  have  found  two 
men  and  two  women  of  genius,  I  have  united  them  to 
show  the  happy  influences  of  knowledge  and  peace :  the 
desire  of  my  heart  is  fulfilled."  Even  in  the  extravaganza 
of  "  The  Flowery  Scroll,"  3  which  glorifies  the  patriarchal 
system  of  marriage,  the  womanly  virtues  of  guardianship 
and  love  are  conspicuous.  The  woman  is  the  man's  good 
genius  in  all  his  works  and  ways.  Its  legend  of  the  peach- 
blossoms  driven  on  the  wind,  where  the  pilgrim  following 
them  crosses  a  stream  and  enters  a  primitive  paradise, 
to  which  he  forgets  the  way,  and  can  never  find  it  again, 
might  well  serve  as  a  symbol  of  this  ideal  of  polygamic 
love. 

The  short  stories,  of  which  the  number  is  immense, 
combine  moral  interest  with  fanciful  belief.  These  short  sto- 
generally  purport  to  be  historical,  and  abound  in  J^p^j" 
admirable  maxims.  The  larger  portion  are  of  dence. 
Tao-'sse  origin,  and  embody  the  peculiar  supernaturalism  of 
this  school.  Spiritist  machinery  is  exploited  to  the  fullest 

1  Chittese  as  they  Are,  ch.  ii.  *  Transl.  by  Julien  (Vol.  II.  296). 

3  Transl.  by  Bowring. 


V 


45  8  STRUCTURES. 

extent,  in  apparitions,  resurrections,  judicial  remandings 
back  and  forth  between  the  worlds,  and  transmigrations 
into  human  bodies,  which  bring  the  departed  into  as  inti- 
mate connection  with  this  world  as  the  strongest  believer 
in  western  stances  could  imagine.1  Scarcely  more  rational, 
though  more  refined,  is  the  large  class  of  stories  which 
substitute  a  subtle  special  providence  for  the  direct  intrusion 
of  genii  and  dead  people  into  human  affairs.  Good  actions, 
shaped  in  this  way  from  above,  with  such  manipulations  as 
are  familiar  to  the  editors  of  Christian  manuals  and  Sunday- 
school  books,  bring  about  shifts  of  fortune,  preservations, 
deliverances,  or  justifications,  highly  agreeable  to  the  popular 
taste  for  ethical  finish.  It  is  the  imperium  in  imperio  which 
belongs  to  virtuous  maxims.  Events  are  set  in  form  of 
riddle  for  providential  solution.  The  philosophy  is  of  the 
"  poor  Richard  "  type,  and  never  was  honesty  proved  "  the 
best  policy  "  with  more  unshrinking  inventiveness,  which 
might  even  afford  many  shrewd  suggestions  to  our  own 
artists  in  this  line.  A  merchant,  finding  money,  restores  it, 
and  thereby  recovers  a  lost  son.  With  the  reward  received 
from  the  owner,  he  is  about  to  make  a  religious  donation  ; 
but,  reflecting  that  "  saving  life  is  better  than  maintaining 
priests,"  he  offers  it  to  any  who  would  save  a  shipwrecked 
company :  one  of  the  rescued  is  found  to  be  his  own  brother, 
returning  from  a  vain  search  for  him  made  at  the  entreaty 
of  his  wife.  Further :  the  wife's  fears  for  his  safety  have 
been  aggravated  by  the  persecuting  suit  of  a  relative,  which 
drives  her  to  attempting  suicide.  A  curious  turn  of  events 
foils  this  offender  ;  while  the  arrival  of  husband  and  long- 
lost  son  puts  all  to  rights,  and  shows  what  blessings 
hang  on  a  single  honest  or  benevolent  action.2  "  Cast  thy 
bread,"  &c. 

A  dreadful  series  of  misfortunes  in  which  a  poor  scholar 

1  See  Plath  Bay.Ak.  Feb.  1868  ;    Chin.  Repos,  April,  1842  ;     Dreams  in  Red  Chamber , 
Ibid.,  May,  1842. 

3  Duhalde,  Hist,  of  China,  Vol.  III. 


LITERATURE.  459 

is  involved  by  the  craft  of  an  enemy,  to  the  point  of  death, 
is  cleared  away  by  providential  skill ;  whereat  magistrates 
are  warned  to  regard  the  life  of  a  man  more  than  that  of  a 
plant,  and  never  to  act  as  if  at  child's  play,  but  as  perform- 
ing the  duties  of  a  parent.1 

The  courageous  and  noble  mandarin  who  shames  the 
common  practice  constantly  reappears.  One  such,  Typesof 
ordered  to  provide  handsome  girls  for  the  Empe- ideal virtue- 
ror's  pleasures,  replies  that  the  Emperor  must  take  his 
three  daughters,  if  he  will,  but  he  knows  of  no  others : 
whereat  the  rebuked  messenger  withdraws.  Another 
refuses  obedience,  on  the  ground  of  the  higher  claims  of 
personal  example.  And  a  third  dies  in  poverty,  and  is 
buried  in  old  garments,  leaving  only  his  memory  in  all 
hearts,  and  his  dying  hope  that  no  poor  man  had  through 
him  been  brought  to  loss.  A  fourth,  poor  because  faithful, 
seeing  a  student  lying  dead  by  the  wayside,  covers  him 
with  his  garment,  sells  his  horse  and  rides  an  ox  for  cheap- 
ness ;  then  meeting  a  dying  man,  kills  the  ox  to  feed  him. 
"  Not  to  succor  those  in  want  is  to  have  no  virtue."  These 
are  but  types  of  the  whole  class  of  Buddhist  and  Tao-sse 
stories  ;  in  which  the  excess  to  which  a  special  virtue  is 
often  pushed  is  attended  by  refinement  of  feeling,  Extreme 
and  a  constant  dwelling  on  the  absoluteness  of  duty  optimism, 
and  love.  We  are  told  of  a  good  man  of  such  delicate 
regard  for  the  feelings  of  others  that  he  afflicted  himself 
on  seeing  a  poor  relation  steal  a  piece  of  silk,  because  he 
might  have  gone  another  way,  and  so  spared  her  the  morti- 
fication of  knowing  that  he  had  seen  her.  He  is  comforted 
by  the  suggestion  of  his  wife  to  pay  her  a  larger  price 
than  usual,  that  she  might  not  suspect  the  fact !  This  is, 
however,  an  extreme  case.  It  has  a  quality  not  unlike  the 
parable  of  the  Unjust  Steward,  and  is  probably  quite  as 
innocent  of  any  immoral  purpose. 

*  Duhalde,  Hist,  of  China,  Vol.  III. 


460  STRUCTURES. 

Tchoo-tse  deserves  to  be  recorded  by  name.  Anxious 
for  his  widowed  and  sick  mother,  he  adopts  an  original  way 
of  treating  thieves  ;  speaking  to  them  softly,  and  offering 
to  give  them  every  thing  if  they  would  not  disturb  her. 
The  proposal  so  amazes  their  burglarships,  that  they  incon- 
tinently withdraw  for  shame  ;  and  are  out  of  sight,  when 
he  returns  to  fetch  them  a  parting  gift.  How  creditable  to 
all  parties  concerned  ! 

A  Brutus-like  father  and  mother  refuse  to  petition  for 
their  son's  pardon,  who  is  under  sentence  of  death,  because 
the  family  would  be  wanting  in  fidelity  to  the  prince. 

A  son,  whose  mother  feared  thunder-storms,  was  wont  to 
go  to  her  tomb  whenever  one  was  coming  on,  and  softly 
say :  "  Mother,  I  am  here." 

In  noticing  the  curious  incompatibility  of  this  high 
Ground  of  ethical  purity  in  Tao-sse  tales  with  the  quality  of 
ho^sVnd  m°tive  to  which  they  appeal ; 1  the  quaint  mixture 
fears.  of  Sakya  and  Lao-tse  with  Solomon  and  Franklin, 
and  even  with  a  Jesuit  casuistry  in  the  grading  of  rewards 
and  penalties, —  we  must  not  forget  that  in  all  popular  lit- 
erature in  current  use,  economic  questions  of  consequen- 
ces naturally  enter  largely,  as  constituting  a  large  part  of 
practical  experience.  These  tales  are  not  the  careful 
constructions  of  philosophers,  but  spontaneous  moralities 
of  the  masses.  And  every  religion  equally  testifies  to  the 
hold  of  their  method  on  common  life,  notwithstanding  the 
incongruities  they  reveal.  Their  best  didactics  are  wont  to 
circulate  about  the  not  very  disinterested  motive,  <c  With 
what  measure  ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured  to  you  again." 
We  cannot  wonder  at  the  Tao-sse  Ananias  struck  by  light- 
ning for  withholding  the  property  of  orphans  ;  the  false 
accuser  killed  by  the  fall  of  the  pole  to  which  his  victim 
is  bound ;  the  burner  of  holy  books,  to  warm  himself, 

1  We  shall  refer  to  the  subject  hereafter,  in  speaking  of  the  tales  contained  in  the  Kan- 
ing-J>ien,  or  Book  of  Rewards  and  Punishments,  used  by  the  later  disciples  of  Laotse. 


LITERATURE. 


461 

r. 

dying  of  pestilence  ;  and  one  who  cuts  out  a  pie's  tongtffe-of 
ulcers  on  his  own.     But  many  tales  are  quite  free  of  suCtt/ 
defects,  and  relate  illustrations  of  the  Confucian   precept    M. 
to  return  good  for  evil  ;    of  redeeming  the  wrong-doer  to 
virtue  by  showing  mercy  ;  of  noble  preference  of  the  spirit 
to  the  form  of  conduct,  from  love  of  sincerity  alone.1 

A  community  so  ancient,  vast,  and  social  as  the  Chinese, 
so  fond  of  finalities  in  speech  and  belief,  and  so  PROVHRBS 
apt  to  bring  every  experience  to  literary  form  and  Theirsig. 
popular  function,  naturally  possesses  a  prodigious  nifkance. 
number  of  proverbs  ;  embodying  in  them  an  impalpable 
inmost  life,  which  can  only  in  this  way  find  true  expression. 
A  nation's  proverbs  are  the  ripe  fruit  of  its  character  and 
history,  its  true  confession  of  faith,  its  alphabet  of  manners, 
its  outlet  into  cosmopolitan  life.  Not  till  adopted  into 
the  universal  brotherhood  of  the  Proverbs  do  the  maxims 
of  the  wise  wear  their  immortal  crowns.  Yet  the  recognized 
sages  are  seldom  the  proverb-makers  in  an  original  sense  ; 
these  are  commonly  unknown  ;  they  live  only  in  their  winged 
words,  and  pass  into  the  circulation  of  the  popular  heart, 
to  which  they  supplied  these  mystic  unappropriated  vivaci- 
ties. A  shy  literature  is  the  proverb  ;  its  tracks  hid  in  the 
infinite  meshes  of  social  magnetism  and  construction,  by 
no  human  wit  to  be  unravelled.  In  the  sea  of  uniformity 
into  which  all  Chinese  individuality  is  speedily  absorbed, 
we  should  hardly  expect  variety  in  the  experience  set  forth 
by  this  form  of  expression,  where  the  tides  of  ages  would 
be  apt  to  roll  the  pebbles  into  common  shape  and  break  off 
fresh  fragments  from  the  same  old  rocks.  But  precisely 
here,  Nature  justifies  herself  in  her  Chinese  children  by  a 
remarkable  diversity. 

i.     In  illustration,  we  select  a  few  from  a  large  collec- 

1  For  illustrations,  see  Davis'  s  Sketches,  Duhalde  and  Julien's  Translation  of  the  Kan- 
ing-pien;  Wuttke,  Geschickted.  Heidenth.,  II.  130,  132;  Mayers  in  Notes  and  Queries,  I. 
10-12. 


462  STRUCTURES. 

tion,1  taken  from  temples,  tablets,  scrolls,  and  the  current 
conversation  of  different  provinces  ;  arranging  them  for  the 
purpose,  under  different  psychologic  classes. 

I.  Practical  thrift  and  sense.  —  If  you  would  pluck  flowers  in  the 

moon,  you  will  have  to  climb  the  sky.     You  cannot  pick  the 
Examples. 

moon  out  of  the  water.     Chanty  begins  at  home.     If  you 

do  not  want  a  thing  known,  do  not  do  it.  To  a  sick  man,  medicine  is 
better  than  prayers.  Remember  the  past,  if  you  would  know  the 
future.  Prevention  is  better  than  cure.  If  you  have  money,  the 
spirits  will  turn  your  mill.  Speak  only  three- tenths  of  your  thoughts  : 
guard  them  as  you  would  a  city.  The  sage  is  not  a  talker,  nor  the 
talker  a  sage.  Better  earn  one  cash  a  day  than  have  myriads  at  your 
bed's  head.  Get  happiness  out  of  calamity. 

II.  Cautionary  ethics.  — Ill-gotten  rice  boils  to  nothing.     A  man  is 
not  beguiled  by  beauty,  but  by  himself.     Better  suffer  from  ingratitude 
than  be  ungrateful.     Judge  not  from  appearances.     Be  always  as  care- 
ful as  when  you  cross  a  plank  bridge.    Search  the  heart  and  see  if  you 
have  reason  to  be  ashamed.     A  quarrel  may  properly  be  ended,  not 
begun.     Think  not  lightly  of  crimes  :  every  one  has  its  penalty.    You 
cannot  shut  off  the  sky  with  your  hand. 

III.  Personal  character.  —  True  gold  dreads  not  fire.  Deep  roots  fear 
no  wind.     A  bond  is  paper  ;  but  the  heart  is  worth  a  thousand  of  gold. 
A  good  man  may  be  slain,  but  his  good  name  cannot  be  marred.    The 
steel  cannot  behead  the  innocent.     Sincerity  moves  the  gods.     Virtue 
wants  no  coloring.     Nobility  is  hard  to  sell.     Eyes  of  flesh  see  not 
men  of  worth.     Do  your  duty  and  rest  in  your  fate.     Best  knowledge 
is  self-knowledge.     Recede  but  a  step,  and  the  sky  is  high,  the  earth 
broad.     The  good  bee  sips  not  at  withered  flowers.     The  more  one 
knows,  the  more  he  knows  his  ignorance.     Three  days  without  study 
makes  one's  talk  insipid.     A  night's  talk  with  the  wise  is  worth  ten 
years  of  reading.     Better  be  without  books  than  believe  all  that  is  in 
them.     To  starve  is  a  slight  matter,  to  lose  virtue  a  great  one. 

IV.  Natural  laws. — Life  and  death  are  destinies.      Sesam^  is 
sesame,  and  beans  are  beans.     Bitter  gourd  bears  bitter  fruit.    Harm- 
ing others  is  harming  self.     The  willow  stuck  in  the  ground  without 

1  Doolittle's  Chinese  Dictionary, 


LITERATURE.  463 

design  will  grow.  Innocence  pierces  to  the  sun.  The  dry  tree  buds 
again.  Joy  is  on  the  surface.  Man  is  not  perfected  without  trials. 
Righteousness  is  the  same  for  ever.  Buddha's  laws  are  without 
bounds.  The  old  man  is  like  a  candle  in  the  wind.  The  old  shield 
wards  off  evil.  May  your  old  age,  like  the  hills,  ascend  more  and 
more.  The  virtuous  shall  live  to  be  old  ;  the  wicked  shall  be  cut  off. 

V.  Trust.  —  For  every  grass-blade  its  drop  of  dew.  Heaven  is 
higher  than  the  gods.  As  the  helmsman  guides  the  ship,  so  Heaven 
man.  Above  us  are  the  blue  heavens  :  God  is  looking  down.  Heaven 
turns  no  deaf  ear  to  the  distressed.  The  good  rains  know  their  season. 
The  wild  birds  have  no  garners,  but  the  wide  world  is  before  them. 
In  time  of  trouble  embrace  Buddha's  foot.  Buddha  is  father  and 
mother.  The  great  Watcher  is  on  high,  compassionate  savior  of  the 
sailor.  The  mercy-ship  sails  everywhere.1 

VI.  The  all-seeing  gods.  —  Heaven  sees  what  is  invisible  to  us.  In 
the  ear  of  Heaven,  whispers  sound  like  the  thunder  ;  in  the  eyes  of  the 
gods  our  secret  thoughts  are  clear  as  lightning.  The  smallest  desire 
to  do  good,  unseen  by  man,  is  known  above. 

VII.  The  soul.     The  spiritual  essence  goes  everywhere.     All  are 
of  Buddha's  essence.     To  mind  there  is  no  far  nor  near.     Mind  is 
infinite.     In  one's  fate  is  a  saving  star. 

VIII.  Humanities.  —  Children  are  one's  heart  and  life.     The  son 
pays  the  father's  debts.     A  filial  spirit  moves  heaven  and  earth.     Two,, 
lotus-flowers  on  one  stem  ;  the  phoenixes  in  concert :  marriage  is  or- 
dained in  heaven.     One's  parents  never  do  wrong  :  brothers  are  hard 
to  find.     Good  men  seek  each  other.     Buddha's  heart  and  a  genie's 
hand.      Preserve   all  who   live  :    all   hearts   are  alike,  and  all   look 
upward. 

IX.  Miscellaneous.  —  Nine  women  in  ten  are  jealous.     A  woman's 
virtue  and  a  wife's  jealousy  are  without  limit.     The  bamboo  makes  a 
good  child.    A  rebel  who  succeeds  is  emperor  ;  one  who  fails  is  a  high- 
wayman.   Excess  in  politeness  is  sure  sign  of  falseness.    Three  thou- 
sand laws  and  five  hundred  books  ;  but  it  depends  on  your  free  will 

1  Compare  sentences  from  the  Hindu  Hitopadlsa,  &c  ,  in  the  first  volume  of  the  present 
work,  on  India. 


464  STRUCTURES. 

whether  you  are  good  or  bad.  The  gods  honor  the  sentences  of  the 
wise. 

2.  From  "  The  Precious  Mirror  of  the  Heart "  l  we  take 
the  following  :  — 

I.  Indolence  comes  easily  to  the  poor,  arrogance  to  the  rich  ;  to 
the  comfortable,  extravagance  ;  to  the  cold  and  hungry,  theft.     When 
food  and  dress  are  according  to  thy  station,  and  thou  hast  joy  therein, 
why  consult  lots  ? 

II.  When  all  love  you,  try  yourself;  when  all  hate  you,  do  the 
same.     When  you  see  good  or  evil  in  another,  see  if  you  have  it :  this 
is  to  progress  in  virtue.     Better  teach  your  son  the  classics  than  win 
yellow  gold.     First  piety  and  love,  then  letters,  is  the  student's  true 
way.     The  successful  who  looks  not  for  misfortune  is  blind. 

III.  How  shall  not  men  withdraw  from  him  who  forsakes  himself? 
He  who  knows  his  true  place,  and  stands  in  it,  shall  never  blush.    He 
who  bears  musk  is  fragrant  of  himself  :  what  need  to  place  himself  in 
the  wind  ?     A  pure  mirror  will  not  receive  the  dust  of  an  antelope's 
foot.     A  great  territory  is  not  worth  so  much  to  one  as  the  least  of 
talents  in  his  own  person.     He  who  drops  his  head,  hearing  praise, 
and  is  glad  to  be  told  of  his  faults,  is  a  sage.     A  true  officer  fears  not 
deatji.     To  give  unpleasant  advice  to  a  prince,  as  to  his  duty,  is  to 
honor  him.     The  official  needs  public  spirit  and  pure  hands. 

IV.  To  plan  is  man's,  to  accomplish  is  Heaven's.      Whoso  ap- 
proaches a  pearl,  becomes  red  ;  or  ink,  becomes  black  ;  or  a  wise  man, 

.becomes  enlightened  ;  or  a  fool,  foolish.  Recompense  follows  good 
and  evil  conduct,  as  the  shadow  the  substance.  Heaven  leaves  none 
without  income,  as  earth  no  plant  without  root.  When  the  spirits  of 
wisdom  try  the  secret  things,  they  send  not  good  fortune  in  return  for 
rich  offerings,  nor  misfortunes  on  account  of  ceremonial  neglects. 

V.  Nothing  can  surpass  piety.     If  it  looks  up  to  Heaven,  wind  and 
rain  come  in  their  seasons  ;  if  it  reaches  out  to  earth,  all  things  have 
prosperous  ending  ;  if  it  go  forth  to  men,  one  attains  all  riches.    Pearls 
waste  in  using  :  piety  blesses  for  ever.  , 

VIII.  If  thou  seest  another  do  good,  publish  it ;    if  evil,  hide  it. 
Hearest  thou  of  another's  sins,  be  it  as  if  thou  hadst  heard  reproach  of 

1  Translated  by  Plath,  Bay.  Ak.  d,  Wiss.,  July,  1863.     The  arrangement  by  numbers  is 
the  same  as  before. 


LITERATURE.  465 

thy  father  and  mother :  the  ear  may  hear,  but  let  not  the  tongue  speak 
it.  Join  not  their  company  who  speak  evil  of  others.  It  is  joy  to  see 
a  good  man  ;  to  hear  of  a  good  deed  ;  to  speak  a  good  word  ;  to  fulfil  a 
good  aim.  Sweep  the  snow  from  thy  own  door  :  spy  not  at  the  frost 
on  another's  tiles.  Hinder  not  the  laborer ;  insult  not  the  good ;  let 
the  traveller  have  the  roadway ;  let  the  old  carry  no  burdens  ;  hate 
contention  ;  help  thy  neighbor.  The  hate  thou  keepest  for  a  day,  a 
thousand  years  will  not  root  out.  To  return  hate  with  kindness  is  like 
throwing  water  on  snow  :  to  return  hate  with  hate  is  like  a  wolf  look- 
ing at  a  worm.  Is  one  good  to  me,  let  me  be  good  to  him  ;  is  he  evil, 
let  me  still  be  good  :  how  then  can  he  hate  me  ?  A  beautiful  word  is 
like  a  poem  that  sheds  glory  :  a  genial  word  is  like  bells,  harps,  and 
lutes.  Communion  with  the  good  is  a  fragrance  of  flowers  that  fills 
the  neighborhood. 

3.  A  few  sentences  may  be  added  from  other  selections 
out  of  the  same  work  by  Davis  and  Williams.1 

Misfortunes  issue  where  diseases  enter,  — at  the  mouth.  What  is 
whispered  in  the  ear  is  heard  miles  away.  The  gods  cannot  help  one 
who  loses  opportunities.  Dig  your  well  before  you  are  thirsty.  Swim 
with  one  foot  on  the  ground.  Forbearance  is  the  jewel  of  home.  A 
great  man  never  loses  the  simplicity  of  a  child.  Prefer  right  to  kin- 
dred (in  patronage).  He  who  soars  not,  suffers  not  by  a  fall.  He  who 
combats  himself  is  happier  than  he  who  contends  with  others.  The 
heart  of  man,  at  a  foot's  distance,  cannot  be  known.  Better  not  be, 
than  be  nothing.  If  the  blind  lead  the  blind,  both  go  to  the  pit.  One 
desires  to  hide  his  tracks,  and  walks  on  the  snow.  Correct  yourself 
with  the  same  rigor  that  you  correct  others  :  excuse  others  with  the 
indulgence  you  show  yourself. 

4.  These   admirable    sayings    have   been    translated  by 
Lister : 2— 

Man  has  ten  thousand  plans  for  himself:  God  but  one  for  him. 
man  cries,  "  Now,  now  :  "  God  says,  "  Not  yet,  not  yet."  A  good 
Man  protects  three  villages.  Let  your  ideas  be  round  and  your  con- 
duct square.  Right  heart  need  not  fear  evil  seeming.  God  drives  no 
man  to  despair.  One  day  of  wedded  life  deserves  a  hundred  days  of 
kindness. 

1  Davis's  Chinese,  Vol.  II.  ;  Williams's  Mid.  Kingd.  I.  587. 

2  China  Rev.,  November  and  December,  1874. 

30 


466  STRUCTURES. 

5.  Kindred   to  these  are  the  cheerful  Foo-chow  prov- 
erbs :  — 

Heaven  never  turns  a  deaf  ear  to  the  distressed  heart.  In  one's 
fate  is  a  saving  star.  Fleshly  eyes  cannot  perceive  men  of  worth.  A 
thousand  pieces  of  gold  cannot  purchase  one  wish  from  the  heart. 
Adapt  yourself  to  the  situation,  and  listen  for  Heaven. 

6.  The  following  dignify  the  utilitarian  test : 1  — 

Do  not  imitate  useless  men  ;  do  not  do  useless  things  ;  do  not  read 
useless  books  ;  do  not  speak  useless  words.  If  you  recognize  the 
limits  of  speech,  your  faults  will  be  fewer  ;  of  eating  and  drinking,  your 
maladies  ;  of  desire  and  fancy,  your  covetous  wishes  ;  of  rejoicing,  your 
depressions.  You  may  sit  beside  a  man,  while  a  thousand  mountains 
hide  his  mind.  He  who  follows  craft  and  deceit  is  like  the  flower  of  a 
day.  It  is  better  to  do  good  than  to  burn  incense  ;  to  dismiss  hatred, 
than  to  seek  escape  from  evil  by  repeating  the  name  of  Buddha  ;  to 
have  nothing,  than  to  steal  in  order  to  make  gifts  ;  to  be  faithful  in 
private  relations,  than  to  seek  favor  from  men  in  power.  If  you  have 
not  passed  the  bitterness  of  starvation,  you  know  not  the  blessings  of 
abundance  ;  if  not  through  the  parting  of  death,  you  know  not  the  joy 
of  unbroken  union  ;  if  not  through  calamity,  the  pleasure  of  security  ; 
if  not  through  storms,  the  luxury  of  calm. 

7.  The  ethical  capacity  of  the  Manchus  should  not  be 
omitted.2 

If  you  receive  an  ox,  give  back  a  horse.  Act  with  kindness,  but  do 
Manchu  not  exact  gratitude.  A  good  word  has  heat  enough  for  three 
proverbs,  winters  :  a  hard  one  wounds  like  six  months  of  cold.  To 
yield  to  Heaven  is  to  save  one's  self.  Give  by  day,  and  your  reward  shall 
spring  by  night.  If  there  is  too  much  rice  in  the  kitchen,  there  are 
starving  people  on  the  road.  Help  another  helps  yourself.  Drink  less 
and  learn  more.  The  spirits  know  your  secret  sins. 

The  white  clouds  pass  ;  the  blue  heaven  abides.  Noble  natures 
are  calm  and  content.  The  song  of  a  dying  bird  is  plaintive  :  the 
words  of  a  dying  man  are  just.  How  can  man  reward  the  care  of 
Heaven  ?  Mock  not,  O  young  man,  at  gray  hairs  !  How  long  does 
the  opening  flower  keep  its  bloom  ?  The  wise  place  virtue  in  thought. 

1  From  a  Collection  of  Pearls,  by  Nevius. 

a  See  Rochet,  Sentences  Mantchoux ;  Wollheim,  Litt.  Sdmmtl.  Volk.  des  Orients,  II. 
663,  664. 


LITERATURE.  467 

Think  reasonably,  be  strong  for  virtue,  lean  on  humanity,  and  in  all 
things  be  content.  Judge  not  by  appearance  :  the  sea  cannot  be 
scooped  up  in  a  tumbler.  The  wise  questions  himself,  the  foolish 
others. 

When  the  prince  goes  to  school,  he  is  like  other  boys.  The  highest 
official  is  subject  to  the  law.  Whoso  is  too  subservient  to  masters 
will  reap  shame.  A  good  subject  cannot  serve  two  masters  :  lay  not 
two  saddles  on  one  horse.  A  minister  who  fears  death  will  not  be 
faithful. 


V. 

HISTORY. 


HISTORY. 


A     FAIR  comparison  of  the  modern  newspaper  with  the 
•*•*•    monumental  inscriptions  of  ancient  races,  as  Ancient 
data  for  the  discovery  of  historical  facts,   might  andmod- 

•       ,       r  ern  records 

result  m  a  revisal  of  accepted  opinions  as  to  the  compared 
accrediting  quality  of  our  all-recording  press.  It  would 
contrast  the  simple  themes  and  the  official  character  of 
those  older  archives  with  the  bewildering  complexity  and 
irresponsibility  of  the  material  we  are  gathering  for  the 
future  historian.  It  would  mark  what  manifold  interests 
are  now  at  work  to  vary  the  modes  of  conceiving  and 
representing  the  same  events.  It  would  observe  not  only 
the  continuance  of  the  old  perturbations  of  human  vision 
by  myth-making  desires  and  beliefs,  by  national  prejudices 
and  passions,  and  by  theological  dogmas,  but  also  many 
new  features  in  that  ambiguity  of  human  language  which 
arises  from  differences  of  personal  culture  and  experience, 
and  increases  with  the  number  of  classes  who  get  expres- 
sion in  writing  and  speech.  We  should,  perhaps,  find  it 
difficult  to  state  wherein  the  objective  sense  of  historical 
truth  is  the  gainer  by  the  prodigious  mass  of  details  which 
we  are  accumulating  with  the  full  powers  of  the  best  re- 
cording machinery  ever  known. 

The  fact  seems  to  be  that  our  advantage  over  the 
ancients  consists  by  no  means  in  the  truthfulness  of  our 
records,  but  in  the  possession  of*  a  scientific  sense  which 
can  sift  out  errors  by  the  test  of  natural  law.  Our  use  of 
this  matchless  instrument  is,  however,  far  from  being  made 


472  STRUCTURES. 

effective  by  a  corresponding  conscientiousness  in  the  record 
of  what  most  concerns  our  life. 

The  progress  of  science  within  the  last  half-century,  in 
deciphering  and  verifying  the  records  of  Oriental  nations, 
has  therefore  far  outrun  its  success  in  solving  the  still  more 
difficult  problems  of  modern  history.  Our  documentary 
resources  blind  us,  and  we  grope  amidst  conflicting  illu- 
sions. In  the  abundance  of  communication  there  is  equal 
scope  for  interpretation  :  the  data  become  crowded,  con- 
fused, indecisive.  We  claim  to  be  "  making  history  "  faster 
than  any  age  before  us,  because  every  act  has  unexampled 
breadth  of  immediate  effect  ;  but  we  may  as  truly  be  said 
to  unmake  history  in  the  obscure  and  untrustworthy  data 
we  leave  for  future  decipherment  on  all  questions,  bio- 
graphical, literary,  political,  or  social  ;  imposing  a  task 
more  difficult,  and  perhaps  less  conclusive  in  its  results, 
than  the  study  of  cuneiform  tablet  or  hieroglyphic  scroll. 

The  real  way  in  which  epochs  "  make  history  "  is  doubt- 
History  less  in  the  transmission  of  their  qualities  as  histori- 
transrmts  ca]  conciitions,  rather  than  in  the  record  of  definite 

qualities 

rather  than  historical  facts.  An  unconscious  revelation  of 
character  is  written  on  the  products  of  an  age  or 
a 'people,  and  compensates  us  for  all  the  difficulties  that 
beset  a  critical  study  of  details.  To  interpret  this  psycho- 
logical testimony  is  not  the  province  of  science,  which  can 
only  bring  the  data  into  the  best  form  for  use  by  a  higher 
tribunal.  Interpretation  belongs  to  moral  intelligence  and 
spiritual  sympathy.  Historical  facts  are  no  better  than 
fictions  till  they  come  under  the  touch  of  these  magnetic 
hands. 

The  real  interest  of  remote  times  and  records  is  in  their 
its  psycho-  bearing  on  the  progress  of  mankind.  It  is  when 

logical  they  are  regarded  in  this  aspect  that  their  psycho- 
value  is  of  .  i .  • 

primary  logical  meaning  becomes  indispensable.  It  is  a 
importance.  great  satisfaction  to  observe  such  achievements  of 


HISTORY.  4/3 

positive  studies  as  the  confirmation  of  Manetho's  list  of  the 
Egyptian  dynasties,  and  of  the  Chaldean  series  of  Berosus  ; 
the  rich  harvest  of  names,  epochs,  conquests,  race-relations, 
religious  and  social  institutions,  opened  by  the  Assyrian 
and  Babylonian  tablets  ;  and  the  hopes  thus  afforded  that 
we  shall  obtain  better  knowledge  than  we  now  possess  as 
to  the  credibility  of  the  old  Chinese  records  of  similar 
aspect.  But  the  facts  thus  proved  or  promised  are  insig- 
nificant, compared  with  the  endless  questions  of  fact  they 
will  bring  into  discussion ;  while,  as  materials  for  estimat- 
ing the  character  of  these  races  and  their  relations  to  the 
laws  of  human  nature,  they  possess  a  value  quite  independ- 
ent of  all  such  questions.  Merely  to  know  what  is  recorded 
is  of  more  importance  than  to  decide  the  more  difficult 
question  of  its  historical  truth  ;  since  it  at  any  rate  repre- 
sented what  the  age  or  people  believed,  which  is  more  to 
our  purpose  than  verifying  the  account  of  circumstances 
that  came  and  went,  and  of  which  not  a  thousand  mil- 
lionth part  can  ever  be  recovered. 

It  is  in  vain  that  we  seek  to  reverse  this  precedence  of  the 
spirit  to  the  fact.  Thus  the  pursuit  of  monumental  studies 
in  the  hope  of  proving  the  infallibility  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures in  matters  of  historical  detail  is  an  illusion.  It  is  not 
only  liable  to  incessant  perversion  of  the  facts,  but  forgets 
that  the  presumed  inspiration  is  itself  contrary  to  all  laws 
of  mind,  and  would,  were  it  possible,  defeat  that  very  uni- 
versality of  law  through  which  alone  historical  research 
can  be  of  any  use  to  us.  What  concerns  us  is  to  discover 
the  human  forces  of  which  civilizations  are  the  expression, 
the  unconscious  and  slowly  developing  unities  that  bring 
their  diversities  of  form  into  mutual  service. 

While  so  much  is  now  being  brought  to  view  by  which 
these  higher  objects  are  furthered,  we  must,  then,  be  con- 
tent to  recognize  the  doubts  that  continue  to  hang  around 
the  details  of  ancient  records  as  a  part  of  the  constant  con- 


474  STRUCTURES. 

ditions  of  human  knowledge.  Let  us  be  at  least  as  thank- 
ful for  any  light  thrown  on  the  psychological  significance 
of  what  we  do  know  of  past  times  and  races,  as  for  the 
minute  linguistic  or  other  circumstantial  discussions  by 
which  specific  facts  are  pursued.  What  though  we  cannot 
see  with  bodily  eyes  the  detail  doings  involved  in  what 
these  old  upturned  strata  contain  ?  There  is  no  human 
record  that  does  not  reveal  much  more  than  what  men  say 
or  do,  in  its  witness  to  what  they  are. 

How  interesting,  for  example,  to  note  the  unconscious 
imagina-  function  of  imagination  in  the  construction  of  all 
stmcthre°n"  Sreat  civilizations  !  No  ancient  people  is  so  prosaic 
ofpre-his-  as  not  to  have  antedated  its  history  from  a  mythi- 
cal epoch,  usually  of  vast  extent  and  under  rulers 
of  ideal  endowments.  The  explanation  of  this  fact  lies 
probably  in  the  mystery  of  unbounded  time  ;  that  vast  and 
vague  conception  whose  envelopment  of  conscious  mind,  as 
its  proper  space,  is  the  condition  of  all  human  experience 
whatever.  The  shoreless  sea  of  an  unknown  past,  filled  by 
science  with  the  preparatory  steps  of  evolution,  must  be 
peopled  for  unscientific  races  by  forces  adequate  to  produce 
what  they  most  prize  in  their  own  civilizations.  In  thus 
presuming  cosmic  or  personal  powers,1  superior  to  the  re- 
sults they  are  believed  to  have  effected,  the  imagination  is 
infinitely  more  logical  than  the  supposed  "  science  "  which 
ascribes  higher  stages  to  the  inherent  force  of  lower  ones 
—  the  oak  to  the  acorn,  or  the  mind  to  primitive  plasm  — 
as  mere  outcome  and  product.  To  that  higher  procedure  of 
imagination,  where  science  has  not  supplanted  it  with  the 
still  higher  perception  of  invariable  laws,  there  is  probably 
no  exception  in  the  history  of  races.  That  such  assertion 
of  the  national  ideal,  as  having  been  in  some  sense  master 


1  According  to  recent  comparative  mythology,  a  cycle  of  "  solar  myths,"  impressions  from 
cosmic  phenomena,  precedes  personal  legends,  which  etymology  shows  to  be  their  unconscious 
transformation. 


HISTORY.  475 

of  the  world  from  the  beginning,  is  involved  in  the  first 
consciousness  of  national  life  itself,  lends  a  dignity  to  the 
early  stages  of  progress  ;  crowning  them  with  the  graces 
of  ideality,  creative  thought,  and  loyalty  to  ancestral  de- 
scent. 

Different  forms  are  assumed  by  these  mythic  construc- 
tions of  pre-historic  time ;  but  the  law  itself  is  equally 
apparent,  whether  in  the  enormous  periods  of  the  oldest 
Indian,  Egyptian,  and  Chaldean  mythology,  in  the  vast 
supernatural  powers  ascribed  to  the  ante-human  Buddhas, 
or  in  the  milder  longevity  accorded  by  the  Hebrews  to  their 
patriarchs,  and  the  less  florid  style  of  miracle  correspond- 
ing to  their  monarchical  faith,  and  rendering  their  traditions 
inconspicuous  among  those  freer  blooms  of  the  world- 
garden  of  myths. 

The  matter-of-fact  Chinese  are  no  exception  to  the  rule. 
Their  rationalistic  genius,  however,  is  apparent,  TheChi- 

•  nese  no 

even  in  the  way  in  which  they  have  conceived  their  exception, 
primitive  history  ;  and  in  this  respect,  as  in  many 
others,  it  brings  them  into  nearer  relations  with  here, 
the  best  modern  science  than  belong  to  the  other  Oriental 
races. 

It  is  true  they  have  fabulous  dynasties,  beginning  with 
Pwan-ku,  as  first  organizer  of  chaos,  and  reaching  on  for 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  ;  lines  heavenly,  earthly, 
and  human,  all  previous  to  Fo-hi  and  Hwang-te,  mythical 
founders  of  the  State.1  This  primal  world  was  peopled 
with  grotesque,  semi-human  beings  and  elemental  prodi- 
gies.2 But  such  fables  originated  in  the  later  degenerate 
schools  of  the  Tao-sse,  and  in  books  composed  during  the 
Han,  or  possibly  as  late  as  the  twelfth  century.3  They  do 
not  represent  the  national  faith.  Neither  of  the  recog- 

1  See  Mayers's  Chin.  Manual  (1874) ;  also  Mem.  cone,  les  Ckinois,  Vol.  XIII.  ;  Biot, 
Journ.  As.,  February,  1846. 

8  For  pictures  of  these  mythical  rulers,  see  Chin.  Repos.,  1842. 
3  Cibot,  Mem.  cone,  les  Chinois,  I.  101,  127,  158. 


4/6  STRUCTURES. 

nized  historians  pretends  to  commence  history  before  Fo- 
hi,  2,850  B.C.,  —  a  very  moderate  antiquity  compared  with 
the  claims  of  Buddhist  or  Egyptian  dynasties.1  No  intel- 
ligent Chinese  believes  in  the  Pwan-ku  legends  any  more 
than  we  do  in  Jack  the  Giant  Killer  or  Scandinavian  troll- 
wives. 

Even  the  dynastic  lists  down  to  the  eighth  century,  B.C., 
Soberness  are  far  from  being  accepted  by  these  historians 
his^rianT  as  equally  credible  with  the  later  annals.  But  their 
of  china,  soberness  appears  still  more  in  their  rationalistic 
treatment  of  history  itself.  Remusat  said  of  Sse-ma-thsian, 
who  compiled  the  Sse-ki  during  the  Han,  and  who  has 
been  called  the  Father  of  Chinese  History,  that  in  his 
annals  of  two  thousand  five  hundred  years  he  never  ad- 
mitted a  fabulous  account.  It  would  probably  be  more 
correct  to  say  that  he  admitted  no  miracles.2  The  reader 
of  the  Tong-kien  of  Sse-ma-kwang,3  his  descendant  (elev- 
enth century),  will  be  surprised  to  find  in  this  standard 
history  of  an  Oriental  nation,  written  before  the  conception 
of  history  had  dawned  upon  the  Christian  mind,  a  work  as 
severely  exclusive  of  miracle  as  Tacitus,  —  a  work  as  secu- 
lar as  Macaulay  or  Grote,  as  simple  and  direct  as  Herodo- 
tus, and  as  noble  as  Thucydides. 

The  Shu-king,  although  hardly  a  historical  authority, 
of  the  and  containing  many  incredible  traditions,  also 
shu-kmg.  avoj^s  miracle-legends  ;  and  three  books,  offered 
as  belonging  to  it  on  the  recovery  of  its  text,  and  called 
"  Natural  Prodigies,"  have  fallen  away  for  want  of  repute. 

The  "  Bamboo  Books,"  a  very  old  chronicle,  running 
parallel  with  the  Shu,  are  also,  in  their  original  form,  free 
from  this  element ;  and  the  mass  of  fable  which  accom- 

1  Carre's  L1  Ancien  Orient,  Vol.  I.     The  monuments  place  Menes  5,000  years  B.C.      See 
Brugsch,  Mariette  Bey,  Owen,  before  Intern.  Congr.  of  Orient,  1870. 

2  His  accounts  of  Yao  and  Shun  may  be  legendary.     Chalmers  (f)rig.  of  Chinese)  likens 
them  to  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  account  of  the  Britons  before  Caesar's  invasion. 

3  Translated  by  De  Mailla,  as  Hist.  Ght.  de  la  Chine. 


HISTORY.  4/7 

panics  the  text,  probably  from  much  later  hands,  is  treated 
with  entire  contempt  by  scholars.1 

Confucius  and  Mencius  are  equally  sober  historians,  and 
no  monarch  previous  to  Yao  is  mentioned  in  their  Of  ]ater 
writings.2  Sse-ma-thsian's  caution  in  receiving  the  writers. 
old  legends  is  illustrated  by  his  commencing  his  history 
at  a  period  later  than  Fo-hi,  in  this  point  falling  behind 
the  faith  of  his  people,  —  a  national  commission  being  ap- 
pointed somewhat  later,  which  completed  the  annals  from 
sources  brought  to  light  in  the  revival  of  old  literature 
under  the  Han.3  A  supposed  copy  of  a  lost  history  of  the 
most  ancient  date  (the  Ou-fen)  was  set  aside  by  these  crit 
ics  for  want  of  evidence,  though  allowed  to  be  mainly  in 
accord  with  what  was  already  believed.4 

The  praises  of  Pere  Amyot,  contrasting  the  sobriety  of 
the  Chinese  historians  with  the  credulity  of  chroniclers  in 
most  other  nations,  who  in  similar  case  would  have  drawn 
up  labored  genealogies  and  made  a  wilderness  of  mythic 
fancies  about  Fo-hi  and  his  predecessors,  do  not  seem  to 
be  overstrained.  ^These  scholars  were  in  fact  ripened 
fruits  of  the  institution  of  official  historiographers.  Their 
function  was  to  study  with  care  the  national  dy-  The  hb_ 
nastic  annals,  recorded  and  sealed  up  from  public  toriogra- 
view  by  these  officials  age  after  age,  and  to  com-  phers> 
pare  them  with  other  historical  material,  amply  provided 
by  the  national  tastes,  —  vases,  inscriptions, 'astronomical 
records,  and  oral  traditions.  They  recognized  as  fully  as 
we  do  the  distinction  between  legendary  lore  and  authentic 
record,  and  are  as  fully  on  their  guard  against  supernatural- 
ism  as  the  critical  European  inquirer.  The  writers  of  the 
great  Chinese  histories  belonged  to  a  family  famous  for 

1  See  Legge,  Prolegomena,  to  the  Shu,  106. 

a  The  fft'tse,  appendix  to  the  Y-king,  is  now  ascribed  to  a  different  hand  from  Confucius. 
The  Kt'a-yu,  which  recounts  fables  in  his  name,  is  not  received  as  genuine  history. 

»  De  Mailla,  Pref.,  p.  25. 

4  Crosier" s  Prelim.  Disc,  to  De  Mailla,  p.  34.  Other  similar  instances  in  the  Letters  to 
Frtret. 


478  STRUCTURES. 

many  generations  for  their  achievements  in  this  difficult 
function,  a  family  whose  reputation  was  a  national  trea- 
sure. The  father  of  Sse-ma-thsian,  consigning  to  him  on 
his  death-bed  the  task  of  continuing  his  great  work,  said  : 
"  Our  ancestors  have  been  illustrious  in  historical  func- 
tions from  the  days  of  the  third  dynasty  :  study  their  writ- 
ings." Like  the  great  Italians,  these  high  officials  were  at 
once  statesmen  and  scholars,  wrote  books  and  led  armies. 
The  "Grand  Historiographer"  was  a  man  of  the  world, 
a  magistrate,  who  had  practical  knowledge  of  the  charac- 
ters of  men  and  of  the  events  of  the  time  ;  and  was  edu- 
cated in  the  closely  criticised  task  of  investigating  the 
truth  without  fear  or  favor.  The  record  of  the  family  just 
mentioned  was  very  honorable.  Sse-ma-thsian  was 
deprived  of  his  office  and  condemned  to  death  for 
taking  the  part  of  an  officer  defeated  in  battle, 
against  Emperor,  court,  and  public  ;  but  the  sentence  was 
commuted,  and  he  returned  with  greater  devotion  to  his 
studies,  holding  the  office  of  literary  chancellor  till  his 
death.1  Sse-ma-kwang,  quick-witted  enough  when  a  boy 
to  save  the  life  of  a  companion  by  breaking  the  vase  in 
which  he  was  drowning,  and  in  manhood  sagacious  enough 
to  suggest  that  an  eclipse,  turning  out  to  be  less  than  was 
expected,  was  not  a  compliment  offered  by  the  sun  to  the 
Emperor  of  China,  but  a  sign  of  ignorance  on  the  part  of 
the  astronomers,  was  also  remanded  to  private  life  for 
opposing  the  imperial  will.  He  too  was  reinstated  and 
covered  with  honors,  which  he  in  vain  sought  to  escape. 
His  life  was  an  ovation,  his  death  a  national  grief;  his 
funeral  was  honored  by  the  closing  of  the  shops,  by 
kneeling  of  women  and  children  around  his  bier,  and  by 
prostrations  before  his  picture.  By  a  curious  turn,  his 
honors  were  afterwards  reversed,  his  tomb  overturned,  and 
his  writings  burned  ;  but  reinstatement  at  once  followed, 

1  Amyot ;  Ma-touan-lin ;  R^musat,  Nouv.  Mil.  Asiat.,  II.  132-146. 


HISTORY.  479 

and  his  name  was  permanently  inscribed  in  the  temple  of 
Confucius  as  "  Prince  of  Letters."  l 

Ma-touan-lin  (thirteenth  century)  resigned  office  for  the 
sake  of  studies  which  resulted  in  his  vast  cyclopae-  Ma-touan- 
dia,  of  which  it  has  been  said  that  "  one  has  but  lin- 
to  choose  his  subject,  he  can  study  it  in  Ma-touan-lin."2 
From  this  work,  as  has  been  stated,  the  greater  part  of 
European  information  concerning  China  down  to  very 
recent  times  has  been  derived,  not  always  with  the  proper 
acknowledgment. 

Ma-touan-lin  called  his  work,  "  Profound  Researches  in 
Ancient  Monuments."  And  its  sources  demanded  critical 
studies  that  justified  the  title.  The  stancjard  Chinese 
histories  are  results  of  repeated  revisals  of  the  older  works. 
Sse-ma-thsian  apparently  had  at  his  command,  in  the 
treasures  of  the  ancestral  temple  of  the  House  of  Tcheou, 
every  form  of  literary  monument,  except  the  modern 
popular  journal.3  The  literary  resources  of  Ma-touan-lin 
must  have  been  almost  unlimited. 

The  fact  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  these  men  repre- 
sent the  spirit  of  Chinese  civilization,  the  best  Thdr 
effects  of  a  culture  which  made  them  quite  as  critical  ca- 
competent  to  detect  signs  of  popular  ignorance  as  pacity' 
the  literary  critics  of  England  or  America.  And  when  we 
contrast  this  realistic  culture  with  the  inability  of  the 
Hindus  and  the  older  Hebrews  to  distinguish  fully  between 
fiction  and  fact,  and  with  the  inaptness  of  other  ancient 
nations  to  write  pure  history  in  accordance  with  nature,  we 
may  be  justified  in  the  conclusion  that  the  Chinese,  above 
all  these  nations  except  perhaps  the  Greek,  have  been  gifted 
with  the  "  historic  sense."  They  have  clear  consciousness 
of  an  objective  basis,  independent  of  constructions  by  fancy, 
and  corresponding  to  the  modern  conception  of  scientific 
law. 

1  R^musat,  II.  149-165.  *  Ibid.,  170. 

«  Plath,  Wien.  Ak.  d.  Wissensch.,  January,  1870. 


480  STRUCTURES. 

We  have  observed  that  this  rationalistic  spirit  has  not 
Peculiar  forbidden  imagination  to  create  its  ideal  pictures  of 
form  of  prehistoric  times.  Yet  the  sense  of  a  real  distinc- 
ideaHzTtkm  ^lon  between  the  naturally  possible  and  impossible, 
of  early  ancj  the  reference  of  old  records  to  the  test  of  pres- 
ent experience  in  the  laws  of  life,  have  prevailed  in 
China  as  nowhere  else  in  the  ancient  world.  The  monu- 
mental records  of  Egypt  are  distinctly  historical ;  but  they 
are  intermixed  with  a  minute  mythology,  the  work  of  a 
priesthood.  The  Assyrian  exhibit  more  of  the  legendary 
element,  the  more  their  riches  are  revealed.  Neither 
show  any  signs  of  the  conscientious  criticism  displayed 
by  writings  like  the  Sse-ki  and  the  Tong-kien.  The 
Hebrew  writers,  from  Genesis  to  Josephus,  are  uncon- 
scious of  any  test  of  current  traditions  by  constant  natural 
laws.  And  the  same  must  be  said  of  early  Christian 
literature,  and  of  the  whole  development  of  the  "  Christian 
consciousness  "  in  relation  to  the  life  of  Christ. 

This  superiority  in  historic  perception  is  partially  due  to 
the  habit  of  referring  every  thing  to  concrete  social  and 
public  uses,  uncontrolled  by  religious  classes  or  institutions. 

In  the  ideal  picture  given  of  the  age  of  Fo-hi  and  his 
The  age  of  successors,  we  find  no  nearer  approach  to  super- 
Fo-hi  and  naturalism  than  the  reference  to  a  very  early  period 
kings!  -of  what  is  properly  the  result  of  later  growth.  The 
close  reia-  longevity  of  these  patriarchs  is  so  controlled  by 

tions  with  J 

nature  and  good  sense,  as  in  no  case  to  exceed  very  much  the 
use>  natural  span  of  life.  Their  achievements  are  not 

wonder-working,  but  useful  inventions,  which  reappear, 
wearisomely  enough,  in  every  picture  of  the  mythic  cycles, 
however  remote  and  fanciful.1  Even  Fo-hi's  all-sufficient 
diagrams  are  a  derivation  of  writing  from  natural  forms. 
The  utilitarian  instinct,  keeping  close  to  positive  knowledge, 
is  lifted  by  the  religion  of  patriarch alism  into  a  force  of 

1  Mtm.  cone,  les  Cfiinois,  XIII.,  pp.  176-214. 


HISTORY.  48 1 

imagination  capable  of  building  with  some  freedom  on 
these  fields  of  primitive  life.  What  the  Chinese  throw 
back  into  this  period  is  what  most  conduces  to  well-being 
and  positive  civility :  they  personify  the  main  facts  of  this 
kind  under  such  names  as  Shin-nung  (Spirit  husbandman), 
Tseih1  (Grain),  Se-eh  (Writing),  Hwang-te  (Great  Ruler). 
Letters,  husbandry,  cultivation ;  marriage,  music,  rites, 
medicine  ;  weights  and  measures  ;  commerce  and  vehicles  ; 
the  compass  and  silk  manufacture  ;  historical  bureaux,  as- 
tronomical studies,  the  cycle  of  sixty  for  measuring  time, 
and  the  worship  of  Shang-te,  the  Supreme  Ruler,  —  form  a 
picture  of  patriarchal  forecast  for  the  benefit  of  mankind. 
In  the  order  of  development  given  to  these  useful  arts,  letters 
and  governmental  organization  precede  agriculture  and  even 
the  use  of  weapons,  which  is  the  logical  order  of  precedence 
in  the  national  mind.  Sse-ma-kwang,  however,  true  to  his 
clear  sense,  though  beginning  with  Hwang-te,  yet  passes 
directly  on  to  Yao  and  Shun,  without  wasting  time  on  such 
minor  questions  as  origin.  Like  Quetzalcoatl  and  Huayna- 
Capac  in  American  tradition,  Hermes  and  Thoth  in 
Egyptian,  Kadmus  in  Greek,  Tubal-Cain  in  Hebrew,  the 
fabled  progenitors  of  Chinese  arts  and  sciences  show 
the  form  given  to  primitive  patriarchalism  by  the  loyalty 
of  the  industrial  nations  to  their  own  past.2  The  sober 
lives  of  these  races  are  reflected  in  this  construction  of  early 
history,  as  the  unbridled  imagination  of  more  passionate 
and  dreamy  ones  is  content  only  with  solar  and  lunar 
dynasties  in  gigantic  play  of  gods  and  demigods  with 
the  elements  and  forms  of  Nature. 

Not  less  in  contrast  with  the  natural  good  sense  of  the 

1  Tseih,  in  the  Shi-king,  is  born  of  a  shepherdess  who  treads  on  a  "foot-print  of  God ;" 
apparently  an  agricultural  myth  (III.  B.  H.  i.)     This  ode  is  not  regarded  as  belonging  to  the 
so-called  "correct  class." 

2  A  precedent  period  of  "  solar  myths ' '  is  not  here  discernible ;  though  such  an  epoch  may  be 
intimated  for  the  "Turanian  races  "as  a  whole,  by  some  of  the  Mongol  and  Finnish  legends, 
especially  in  the   Kalevala   (see  Castr^n,   Finnische  Mythologie,  pp.   52,  57,  274),  or  in   the 
Solar  Deity  of  the  Japanese.     Burnouf.  Congr.  Internal,  d.  Orient.,  1873). 

31 


STRUCTURES. 

Chinese   historians   are  the   efforts  of  Christian  mission- 
contrasted  aries  to  bring  these  old  traditions  into  conformity 

with  Chris-         •  ,1       .1      •  •  t  r     i      T     r 

tian  at-      Wltn  their  own  scriptures   and   system  of  beliefs. 
tempts  to     Astonished  at  the  evidences  of  an  extended  civili- 

harmonize  .          .        _,.   . 

the  Bible     zation  in  China,  at  a  period  close  upon  that  which 


tlie  Bib^e  describes  as  having  destroyed  the  tribes 
of  the  earth,  and  bound  to  reconcile  Chinese  certi- 
tude with  Bible  infallibility,  some  of  them  threw  aside  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  for  the  Septuagint,  where  a  different 
mode  of  counting  the  ages  of  the  Patriarchs  enabled  them 
to  carry  back  the  deluge  for  some  hundreds  of  years. 
The  Jesuit  Riccioli  went  so  far  as  to  intercalate  in  the 
Septuagint  itself  a  space  of  five  hundred  years.  The  Fa- 
thers were  divided  between  accepting  these  devices  and 
rejecting  Fo-hi  and  Chinese  antiquity  as  anti-Biblical.1 
Some  thought  Zoroaster  the  founder  of  the  Empire  ; 
others  insisted  that  Ham  diffused  his  "wicked  doctrine" 
there:  but,  says  another,  "  as  Ham  and  Zoroaster  were  the 
same  man,  that  makes  no  difference."  "Dr.  Paul,"  says 
Navarre*te,  "  thought  the  idolatry  of  the  three  Equal  Ones 
(in  Buddhism)  was  an  emblem  of  the  Blessed  Trinity,  which 
he  might  as  well  let  alone."  2  Another  theory  made  the 
Chinese  kings  emigrants  from  Babel,  and  even  Hebrew 
patriarchs,  who  had  carried  Noachic  precepts  with  them,  of 
which,  however,  not  a  vestige  could  be  found.  Types  of 
the  life  of  Christ  were  constructed  in  abundance.  As  late 
as  1837,  it  was  asserted  in  the  "Annales  de  Philosophic 
Chretienne"  that  the  deluges  of  Noah  and  Yu  were  the 
same,  and  that  the  "  Five  (primitive)  Chinese  Rulers  "  were 
Adam  and  his  family.3  Dr.  Speer  says  :  "  Which  of  the 
solitary  household  saved  in  the  ark  emigrated  to  the  Ho- 
ang-ho,  no  inspired  chronicle  relates  ;  but  evidently  Fo-hi 
is  related  to  Noah,  and  Shin-nung  is  probably  Shem"  !4 

1  De  Mailla,  I.  175;  Mem.  cone,  les  Chinois,  XV.  261,  XIII.  77. 

a  Churchill's  Voyages.          3  Carre  I.  352.          *  Oldest  and  Newest  Empire,  pp.  36,  37. 


HISTORY.  483 

Yet   nothing  'can    be   more    unlike    the    Hebrew   and 
Christian  myths  of  man's  original  Eden,  intimacy 
with  God,  and  fall,  and  of  a  ruined  race  restored  and  He- 
by  Incarnation,  than  the  account  of  the  original  J^ 
condition  of  mankind  given  in  the  serious  old  Chi-  veryun- 
nese  chronicles.1    It  foreshadows  Darwin  and  mod-  hke' 
ern  science,  and  is  a  curious  commentary  on  the  supposed 
inability  of  the  Chinese  to  conceive  of  progress. 

The  primitive  teachers  of  mankind  are  shown  in   the 
picture  books  as  semi-brute  shapes,  and  improve  Anolder 
in  their   human   aspects   as   we  follow  down   the  Darwin- 
series.  2     The   first   stages   of  the   ascent  are  de-  IS 
scribed  with  much  insight,  as  a  change  from  roving  to  set- 
tled life,  learning  to  make  huts,  to  produce  fire,  to  cook 
food,  to  worship  and  give  thanks,  to  hold   markets,  and 
converse  by  knotted   cords  ;    to  drop  promiscuous  sexual 
relations   and   live    in   families.      We    have   here   mythic 
license  itself   recognizing  the  slow  laws  of  growth  ;  the 
eternal  necessity  of  conforming  to  conditions,  and  paying 
the  price  of  what  is  obtained  ;  the  right  of  reason  over 
passion ;  the  indispensableness  of  obedience,  mutual  help, 
and  religious  belief,  as  bases  of  social  progress.3 

In  the  Hebrew  patriarchal  tradition,  Adam  gives  names 
to  the  creatures  ;  in  the   Chinese,   Fo-hi  teaches  The  Chi. 
the  art  of  writing.     Life  in  Eden  consists  in  tend-  nese>  He- 
ing  a  garden  planted  by  the  Lord  ;  primitive  life  on  Greek 
the  Hoang-ho,  in  the  art  of  sowing  seeds  and  grow-  legends- 
ing  grains  for  public   use.     In   the  one  legend,  labor  is  a 
penalty  for  sin  ;  in  the  other,  a  germ   of  civilization.     In 
the  one,  the  rejected  tiller  of  the  ground  kills  his  brother 
herdsman,  and  is  cursed  ;  in  the  other,  agriculture  is  the 
ground  of  social  life.     In  the  one,  Abel,  the  transient  (the 

1  De  Mailla,  I.  p.  i.  »  Chin.  Refos.,  Feb.  and  Mar.,  1842. 

8  Compare  the  fine  description  in  Juvenal  (Sat.  XV.)  of  the  origin  of  society  in  instincts 
of  affection  and  mutual  help. 


484  STRUCTURES. 

nomad),  inherits  the  promise  ;  in  the  other,  the  fixed  in- 
habitant with  his  industry  and  social  order.  With  the 
Chinese,  the  Astronomical  Tower  is  the  oldest  public 
building ;  with  the  Hebrew,  the  first  effort  of  men  at 
mutual  understanding  and  study  of  the  heavens  is  toppled 
down  upon  their  heads,  and  they  are  scattered  by  a  God 
jealous  of  human  knowledge.  The  glory  of  Abraham  and 
Lot  is  to  wander  about  with  troops  of  camels  and  asses  ; 
that  of  Fo-hi  and  the  rest  to  redeem  the  wilderness  for 
permanent  uses.  The  pith  of  the  one  tradition  is  in  cove- 
nants with  the  tribal  god,  in  circumcision,  in  tests  of  obe- 
dience to  uncomprehended  commands  ;  that  of  the  other, 
in  intelligent  invention,  rational  obedience,  and  social  im- 
provement. The  one  set  of  legends  disparages  surround- 
ing races,  and  especially  the  settled  tribes,  and  asserts 
their  inferiority  to  the  chosen  seed ;  the  other,  with  less 
imagination,  but  -greater  breadth,  makes  the  glory  of  the 
"  hundred  families  "  consist  in  absorbing  other  races  into 
their  own  development  of  natural  resource.  The  one  lays 
its  foundations  in  supernatural  authority  over  human 
thought  and  conduct ;  the  other,  in  the  right  of  the  human 
to  natural  self-culture. 

The  happy  Greeks  begin  with  a  golden  age,  —  life  without 
labor,  disease*  or  grief,  on  the  free  bounties  of  the  cosmos  ; 
followed  first  by  a  penalty  for  the  gifts  of  fire  and  useful 
knowledge,  and  then  by  the  destruction  of  all  human 
blessings  except  hope.1 

In  the  Hebrew  legend,  there  is  an  intenser  ethical  feel- 
ing ;  in  the  Greek,  a  more  brilliant  aesthetic  interest :  and 
both  are  serious  efforts  to  interpret  the  human  conscious- 
ness and  the  law  of  growth.  But  both  fail  of  that  sober 
reliance  on  self-discipline,  and  that  conformity  to  the 
familiar  facts  of  experience  as  significant  of  human  good, 
on  which  at  last  civilization  must  rest. 

1  Hesiod's  Prometheus  and  Pandora. 


HISTORY.  485 

It  is  entirely  in  accordance  with  these  ethnic  qualities 
that  Chinese  authorities  place  the  opening  of  au-  Q  enin  Q{ 
thentic    history   no    earlier   than    the   eighth   cen-  genuine 
tury  B.C.     This  is  the  period  at  which  Confucius  (?)  ^ghth 
opens  his  "  Spring  and  Autumn  Classic,"  the  oldest  century 
pure  chronicle  now  extant,  though  the  evidence  is 
strong   that   much  older   ones  were   extant   in   his   day.1 
No   authentic   inscription   dates   earlier   than   the   eighth 
century.     Positive   records    of   eclipses   are   traceable   no 
further   back.2     Late  research  arrives  at  nothing  beyond 
approximate  dates  of  the  older  dynasties.3     But  all  this, 
which  is  recognized  by   Chinese  criticism  also,   does  not 
warrant  our  dismissing  their  careful  compilations,  based, 
as  they  tell  us,  on  official  records  of   the    States  in  early 
times.      Such   a   ground-work   of   historical   com-  Butan 
positions   cannot  possibly  be  pure  invention.     We  earlier 
may   doubt  that  historiographers  were   appointed  W0rkcer- 
as  far  back  as  the  Hia ;   but  that  the  office  was  tain- 
of    great    antiquity,    and    preservation    of    comparatively 
faithful  records  probable,  there   seems  no  reason  for  de- 
nying in  face  of  all  the  documents  of  the  nation.3     Nor 
can  they  have  been  lost  to  the  great   historians  of  the 
Han  and  Soung.     Even  after  the  fires  of  T'sin  a  single 
century  sufficed  to  show  Prince  Ho-kien   in  possession  of 
several  thousand  volumes,  and  the  lists  of  the  Han  cover 
every  department  of  study  with  works  that  had   survived 
the  barbarian  edict.     Historical  researches  are  believed  to 
have  been   greatly  stimulated   by  the   materials    brought 
together  with  immense  industry  during  the  period  which 
succeeded  the  persecution  of  letters. 

1   Tso-chuen  ( Commentary  on  tJie  Tchun-tsieu). 

*  See  Plath,  Bay.  Ak.,  June,  1867,  p.  13  ;  Chalmers,  in  Legge  ;  Biot,  Jour.  d.  Savans, 
April,  1840.  For  two  thousand  years  before  Confucius,  there  are  but  two  recorded  eclipses : 
one  of  which,  at  best,  is  uncertain  ;  the  other  (Ski-king,  II.,  iv.  ix.)  could  not  have  been  visible 
in  China.  « 

8  The  earliest  chapters  of  the  Shu-king  mention  written  authorities.  The  Li-ki  describes 
the  duties  of  these  officials ;  the  Tcheou-li  mentions  annalists  of  the  States  and  of  the  interior. 
De  Mailla  gives  authorities  for  the  antiquity  of  historical  bureaus. 


486  STRUCTURES. 

In  fine,  the  assured  and  sober  tone,  as  well  as  the  great 
detail  of  the  historians,  persuade  us  that  their  work  cannot 
but  be  founded  on  such  documents  as  they  claim  to  have 
used.  What  was  thought  of  the  nature  of  these  sources 
may  be  illustrated  by  a  conversation  recorded  of  Tai-tsung. 
To  his  request  to  be  allowed  to  see  what  the  Board  of 
History  had  set  down  about  his  government,  the  officer 
replied :  — 

"  No  emperor  has  ever  to  this  day  been  permitted  to  do  that." 
"Would  you  write  it  down,  if  I  did  wrong?"  "Prince,  I  should  be 
filled  with  pain  ;  but  could  I,  with  such  a  function  as  mine,  dare  be 
false  ?  Nay,  more ;  this  very  conversation  will  itself  be  put,  in  full, 
into  the  Annals."  l 

The  incessant  critical  study  of  his  own  literature  shows 
Historical  that  the  conscience  of  the  Chinese  lay  specially 
of  the16"' "  m  hi§  historical  sense.  His  pride  in  the  control 
Chinese,  of  royal  caprice  by  official  recorders,  and  in  the 
annals  of  the  State,  as  seal  of  its  continuity,  was  so  great 
that  it  goes  far  towards  guaranteeing  fidelity  in  the  record. 
The  "  Twenty-four  Dynastic  Histories,"  constructed  on  a 
uniform  model,  and  preserved  with  care,  prove  the  extent 
of  the  materials  and  a  thorough  system  in  the  collection 
and  use  of  them.  Judging  from  Wylie's  analysis  of  their 
contents,  we  should  suppose  they  aimed  at  something  like 
a  photograph  of  the  empire  in  all  departments,  —  political, 
scientific,  literary,  biographical,  —  yet  as  registers,  rather 
than  constructed  histories.  Most  of  them  are  known  to 
have  existed  more  than  a  thousand  years  ago,  in  a  single 
collection,  and  two  have  been  added  during  the  present 
dynasty.  In  three  thousand  books  they  cover  the  whole 
history  of  China,  and  though  doubtless  of  unequal  value, 
are  subject  to  the  constant  revision  of  fresh  scholars.2 

1  De  Mailla,  Pref.^p.  v. 

2  Wylie's  Notes;    Schott's  Beschr.  d.   Ch,  Lit.;    Kauffer  (Die  Chin,  vor  Abrahants 
Zeit,  pp.  55-58),  who  endeavors  to  prove  the  certitude  of  old  Chinese  history. 


HISTORY.  487 

It  has  been  suggested  at  the  opening  of  this  chapter  that, 
while  what  a  people  has  actually  done  will  hardly  THE  SHU- 
get  correctly  recorded,  the  substance  of  its  doing  £™t?cal 
will  inevitably  appear  in  the  quality  of  its  literature,  data. 
We  have  seen  that,  however  free  of  the  miraculous  element 
the  great  Chinese  histories  may  be,  the  politico-industrial 
ideal  itself  gave  a  mythical  stamp  to  certain  portions  of  the 
sober  records.  Yet  their  testimony  is  as  distinct  as  possible 
as  to  the  qualities  of  character  which  went  to  the  making 
of  Chinese  history.  And  down  to  the  Tcheou  period  at 
least,  the  value  of  the  Shu-king,  as  now  accessible  to  our 
study,  consists  substantially  in  this  fact. 

Whether  this  work  be,  as  Cuvier  called  it,  "  a  moral  and 
political  romance,"  or,  as  Cibot  asserted,  "  the  oldest  and 
most  remarkable  monument  of  antiquity  that  we  possess," 
or  whether  the  truth  lies  between  these  two  judgments,  it 
seems  plain  that  its  object  is  to  provide  an  ethico-political 
norm  1  for  educational  purposes  rather  than  to  present  a 
continuous  history.  It  has  no  chronology.  It  is  a  collec- 
tion of  old  records,  registers,  maxims,  edicts,  royal  and 
ministerial  utterances,  all  tending  to  illustrate  the  duties 
of  ruler  and  ruled. 

Records  as  late  as  the  sixth  century  indorsed  the  state- 
ment of  Confucius  that  he  derived  it  from  ancient  docu- 
ments, inventing  nothing.  The  first  reference  of  it  to  him 
is  four  hundred  years  after  his  death.  Its  preface  is  no 
longer  regarded  as  the  work  of  Confucius  ;  and  it  is  still 
open  whether  he  did  more  than  further  its  transmission 
from  earlier  times.2 

Faber,  on  the  other  hand,  rinding  no  earlier  reference  to 


1  It  is  so  entitled  by  the  Manchus.  Observe,  too,  the  titles  of  the  chapters  :  "  Canon  of 
Shun,"  "Admonition  of  Kaou,"  "Great  Edict,"  "Counsels  of  Yu."  The  word  Sku- 
king  means  the  Book  of  Records. 

1  This  is  Pan-kou's  opinion,  who  seems  to  trace  it  back  to  the  cosmos  itself,  and  refers  to 
Confucius  merely  the  re-editing,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Y'king.  (Pauthier  in  Journ.  Asiat.^ 
September  and  October,  1867.) 


488  STRUCTURES. 

it  than  by  the  writers  of  the  Han,  doubts  if  it  was  based  on 
ancient  annals  at  all.1  Julien  claimed  that  the  diversities  of 
style  in  the  different  fragments  were  the  strongest  proof  of 
antiquity.  Legge  draws  a  similar  conclusion  from  various 
matters  of  detail.2  The  work  itself  appeals  to  earlier  rec- 
ords, opening  with :  "  They  who  have  studied  antiquity 
say."  Plath  maintains  the  validity  of  the  whole,  finding 
its  substance  in  Sse-ma-thsian. 

The  severest  negative  criticism  comes  from  native  schol- 
ars. Their  keenness  and  candor  has  anticipated  Western 
criticism,  and  thoroughly  tested  every  chapter,  with  much 
damage  to  the  reputation  of  many  of  them.3  Farther  criti- 
cism has  swept  away  the  authority  of  Gan-kwo's  older 
authorized  text  (Han),  and  he  has  acquired  the  title  of 
"  the  false  Kung."  Nevertheless,  Dr.  Legge  sustains  it,  as 
supported  by  the  oldest  authorities.  He  holds  the  narra- 
tive to  be  in  the  main  genuine,  with  the  exception  of  the 
prominence  given  to  Yao  and  Shun  in  the  earliest  chapters, 
probably  by  additions  made  in  the  Tcheou  ;  and  believes 
the  work  to  be  substantially  the  same  as  that  known  to 
Confucius  and  his  school. 

On  the  whole  testimony,  the  Shu-king  seems  to  repre- 
sent a  body  of  traditions  based  on  ancient  records, 

Its  basis  * 

in  ancient  though  not  by  any  means  to  be  a  verbal  transcript 
of  these.  The  mythology  that  has  grown  up  around 
the  "  Bamboo  Chronicle"  shows  how  differently  the  Shu-king 
would  have  fared  had  it  not  been  kept  to  the  old  simplicity 
by  a  regard  for  historic  truth.  In  their  original  form,  the 
"  Bamboo  Books  "  enable  us  to  control  the  earlier  legends 
of  the  Shu  itself.  They  modes*tly  detail  the  national  growth 
from  the  simplest  beginnings,  and  allow  far  less  pretension 
to  the  monarchy  of  Yao  and  Shun  than  the  Shu-king  ;  the 
Shu  bears  many  marks  of  belonging  to  a  period  of  histori- 
cal study.  The  references  in  Confucius  and  Mencius  con- 

1  Lehre  d.  Confuc.  2  Prolegomena,  p.  50.  3  Legge,  pp.  35-39. 


HISTORY.  489 

firm  its  main  outlines.1  Its  oldest  names  have  no  mythical 
meanings,  like  Adam,  Abel,  Abraham,  but  are  apparently 
historical  The  possibility  of  written  records  at  a  very 
early  period  is  shown  by  the  very  nature  and  growth  of  the 
written  signs. 

In  regard  to  the  main  details  of  the  earliest  chapters,  the 
best  Chinese  authors  agree.     They  accept  the  ar-  Thefirst 
rangement  of  the  people  by  Yao  according  to  the  chapters  of 

,  ,  the  Shu. 

demands  of  agriculture,  and  with  reference  to  the 
seasons  ;  the  appointment  of  Shun  on  the  ground  of  virtues 
proved  by  heavy  family  trials  ;  Shun's  division  of  the  State 
into  twelve  provinces,  and  his  administration  by  Boards, 
tours  of  inspection,  and  the  advancement  of  the  best  men  ; 
the  labors  of  Yu  in  leading  off  the  waters  of  devastating 
floods  ;  and  the  tributes  of  vassal  chiefs  to  a  central  ruler. 
The  firm  belief  in  these  persons  and  events  is  of  course  no 
evidence  of  their  reality,  but  its  psychological  testimony  is 
none  the  less  effective.  The  long  speeches  of  kings  and 
councillors  may  well  be  due  to  later  times,2  while  resting 
on  ancient  traditions  and  ideals  of  conduct.  The  famous 
tribute  roll  of  Yu,3  in  which  almost  every  product  known 
to  later  China  is  entered,  has  been  favorably  viewed  by 
most  critics  ; 4  though  Legge  regards  it  as  a  romance 
transmitted  from  the  Shang  to  the  Tcheou.  The  traditions 
of  Yu's  labors,  read  in  the  sober  statements  of  the  Shu-king, 
have  nothing  inherently  improbable  about  them.  We  could 
not  expect  positive  evidences  of  very  early  events  in  China, 
since  the  older  literary  records  were  on  bamboo,  not  on 

1  See  especially  Lun-yu,  VIII.  20,  21  ;  XIV.  22  ;  XX.  i  ;  Menc.  III.  Pt.  11.  ix.  ;  IV.  Pt. 
i.  ii.  ;  V.  Pt.  i.  iii.  9 ;  VII.  Pt  n.  xxxviii.     Mencius  definitely  carries  back  the  monarchy  to 
2300  B.C. 

2  Biot,  Journ.  At.,  February,  1846.  s  Shu-king^  Pt.  III.  B.  i. 

4  Biot,  ut  ante,  Bunsen,  whose  love  of  high  figures  assigns  the  Chinese  fifteen  to  twenty 
thousand  years  of  primitive  history,  considers  the  Yu-kung  to  be  "as  truly  a  contemporary 
document  as  the  capitularies  of  Charlemagne."  (Egypfs  Place,  &c.,  V.  s.  287,  Germ.  ed.)« 
Plath  has  a  similar  view  of  the  tribute  and«the  labors  of  Yu  ;  and  Re"musat  thought  the  former 
an  "  inestimable  record  of  the  geography  of  the  Empire  2300  years  B.C."  (Nouv.  Mel.  As.,  II. 
283.) 


4QO  STRUCTURES. 

stone.  Antique  vases  throw  little  or  no  light  on  such 
questions,  except  as  indicating,  in  case  the  opinion  of  their 
antiquity  is  correct,  that  the  arts  of  writing  and  registering 
were,  even  before  the  Tcheou  dynasty,  in  full  use.1  The 
"  Nine  Vases,"  engraved  by  Yu  to  transmit  maps  of  the  prov- 
inces, were  believed  in  later  times  to  have  been  the  safe- 
guard of  the  nation,  but  lost  in  the  river  Sse.2  Finally, 
the  much-discussed  "  Inscription  of  Yu,"  supposed  to  have 
lain  unnoticed  on  the  top  of  a  mountain  for  three  thousand 
years,  and  then  to  have  been  copied  over  and  over  again, 
has  certainly  no  claim  to  great  antiquity.3 

These  various  opinions  illustrate  the  uncertainty  that 
rests  on  the  origin  and  age  of  the  early  chapters  of  the 
Shu.  While  their  naturalism  is  in  favor  of  their  substantial 
truth,  they  show  unmistakable  signs  of  conformity  with 
later  ideals. 

Even  if  we  allow  these  chapters  the  respect  due  to  a 
chiefvaiue  ^asls  °^  °^  records,  dating  many  centuries  before 
is  psycho-  Christianity,  their  chief  value  is  that  of  recording 
poHtico- a  Profound  elements  of  national  faith.  The  Shu-king 
ethical  is  by  no  means  strictly  historical,  but  ethico-politi- 
cal :  its  purpose  is  to  show  by  examples  that  the 
duties  of  princes  to  the  people,  rightly  fulfilled,  bring  bless- 
ings from  Heaven,  and  opposite  conduct  public  misery  and 
dynastic  ruin.  The  lesson  is  enforced  by  wise  kings  and 
worthy  ministers,  in  exhortations  and  warnings  of  the  high- 
est ethical  quality,  as  well  as  by  tales  like  the  "  Metal-bound 
Coffer,"  which  illustrates  nobility  in  a  ruler  by  his  desire 
to  die  in  place  of  a  brother  ; 4  and  the  "  Hounds  of  Leu," 
which  teaches  the  duty  of  a  prince  to  refuse  tributes  that 
merely  stimulate  his  love  of  pleasure.5  The  gaps  in  the 
narrative  show  that  no  continuous  account  was  aimed  at 


1  Pauthier,  La  Chine,  I.  201-205.  *  Plath,  February,  1867. 

8  Legge,  Proleg.,  p.  70.  '  Shu-king,  Pt.  V.  B.  vi. 

8  Ibid.,  Pt.  V.  B.  v. 


HISTORY.  491 

The  Shu  is  not  the  work  of  a  historian  nor  of  a  poet.     It 
is  not  allegorical.     It  is  preaching  from  history. 

The  deliverance  of  the  State  from  debauched  dynasties 
by  the  heroism  of  T'ang  and  Woo,  their  recognitions  of 
duty,  their  self-criticism  on  account  of  the  evils  of  civil  war, 
their  appeals  to  the  people  in  defence  of  the  right  of  rebel- 
lion, convey  the  lesson  that  this  last  resort  of  a  people  must 
not  be  avoided  when  the  offences  of  rulers  are  rank. 

Mingled  with  humility  and  self-watchfulness,  as  earnest 
as  the  energy  of  these  model  revolutionists,  are  exhorta- 
tions to  be  generous  amidst  natural  penalties  ;  to  "  add  the 
statesrnanly  head  to  the  vigorous  hand  ;  "  to  remember  that 
"  Heaven  helps  only  the  good,  and  that  all  good  acts  alike 
contribute  to  good  government,  all  evil  ones  to  disorder ; " 
"  to  give  heed  to  the  beginning  by  thinking  of  the  end  ;  " 
"  to  follow  the  mean,  not  assuming  to  be  wise,  nor  throwing 
the  old  statutes  into  confusion."  } 

"  Reverence  "  is  constantly  urged  in  the  sense  of  a  tender 
consideration  for  the  ancient  paths  as  leading  to  peace  and 
good  will  ;  for  the  nicely  balanced  order  of  great  social 
relations  ;  and  for  the  people's  voice  and  good.  "  I  will 
examine  my  conduct,"  says  T'ang,  "  in  accordance  with  the 
mind  of  God."  2 

Every  reign  must  illustrate  the  law  that  government  de- 
pends on  the  choice  of  the  best  and  wisest  for  office,  and  on 
studying  to  respect  and  imitate  them.  Thus  is  "  All-wise 
and  All-seeing  Heaven  taken  as  pattern,"  3  and  blessings, 
not  penalties,  descend. 

The  religion  of  the  Shu  is  in  three  things  :  faith  in 
righteousness,  in  the  people,  in  Heaven.  A  con-  Reiigion 
crete  virtue  :  no  abstract  creed,  no  class  nor  caste  °ftheshu. 
interferes  from  without  with  the  movement  of  the  political 
order  ;  celestial  wisdom  is  embodied  in  institutions,  includ- 
ing official  rites  as  their  safeguard  and  filial  bond  ;  the  true 

1  Shu-king,  Pt.  V.  B.  xvn.  «  Ibid.,  Pt.  IV.  B.  in.  »  Ibid,  Pt.  II.  B.  vni. 


4Q2  STRUCTURES. 

prince  comes,  by  the  divine  appointment  of  character,  to 
enthrone  righteousness  ;  the  overthrow  of  an  evil  dynasty 
is  the  justice  of  a  divine  order,  whose  indications  are  ever 
at  hand,  shown  indeed  by  divination  to  the  wise,  though 
the  interpretation  must  rest  with  human  judgment,  rightly 
weighing  the  facts.1 

The  student  of  the  Shu  is  supposed  to  be  capable  of 
reading  and  taking  to  heart  any  amount  of  didactics  on 
these  few  and  simple,  yet  on  the  whole  very  noble,  strings. 
Now  and  then  an  elaborate  detail  of  national  resources,  like 
the  "  Tribute  of  Yu ; "  or  an  ideal  construction,  like  the 
"  Great  Plan  "  of  human  nature,  and  the  ends  of  govern- 
ment ;  or  the  exposition  of  an  official  system  like  the  Tcheou, 
—  bears  witness  to  the  manifold  material  to  which  this  polit- 
ical philosophy  could  make  appeal.  Every  thing  indicates 
what  need  was  felt  of  having  conduct  prearranged  down  to 
details  to  satisfy  the  love  of  obedience  and  steadfast  orderly 
ways. 

The  "  Great  Plan " 2  sums  up  the  five  true  ends  of 
living,  as  long  life,  riches,  health  of  body  and  serenity  .of 
mind,  love  of  virtue,  and  a  happy  death  ;  and  the  Six  Evils, 
as  misfortune,  short  life,  sickness,  sorrow,  poverty,  wicked- 
ness, and  weakness :  a  list  in  which  there  must  be  shades 
of  distinction  not  conveyed  in  the  translation.  All  this  is 
an  early  effort  at  philosophy,  not  unlike  the  old  Vedic  and 
Greek  efforts  in  the  same  kind. 

At  the  base  of  the  whole  Shu-king  is  the  characteristi- 
Basisinthe  cally  Chinese  faith  in  an  inherent  moral  sense  in 
universal  a]j  men>  whose  sanctions  are  not  found  in  fears  of 
sense.  hell  nor  hopes  of  heaven,  and  whose  acknowledged 
origin  in  the  "  nature  of  things  "  leaves  no  room  for  an 
arbitrary  divine  will.  In  proof  of  its  distinctness,  we  may 

1  Ibid.,  Pt.  V.  B.  iv.     Later  critics  call  divination  the  superstition  of  the  Shang ;  but 
scarcely  any  have  repudiated  it  (Legge,  note,  p.  338). 

2  Shu-kiug,  Pt.  V.  B.  iv. 


HISTORY.  493 

note  that  concubinage  is  fully  recognized  as  a  constant 
cause  of  public  disorder,  and  together  with  intemperance  as 
at  the  root  of  all  great  dynastic  calamities.1 

As  we  come  down  to  the  "  Age  of  the  Warring  States," 
which  ended  in  the  destruction  of  feudalism,  and   character- 
the  unity  of  the  empire  under  the  T'sin,  a  far  greater  ^7°^ 
distinctness  of  details  indicates  that  we  are  on  solid  of  histori- 
historical  ground.     The  object  of  narrative  seems  ^enar 
here  to  be  almost  wholly  biographical.     The  Sse-ki  The  civil 
chapters  are  a  gallery  of  war  portraits,2  and  the   v 
accounts  which  have  been  drawn  up  from  a  host  of  author- 
ities3 by  the  German  Orientalists,  Plath  and   Pfitzmaier, 
give  minute  details  of    internecine   warfare  between  the 
kingdoms.     The  total  want  of  significance  for  us  in  Chinese 
names,  and  the  monotony  of  the  narrative,  make  the  story 
of  these  wars  very  dismal  reading  ;  and  the  effect  is  aggra- 
vated by  its  painful  incongruity  with  the  lofty  teachings  of 
the  Shu-king.     Yet  it  is  no  worse  than  the  constant  satire 
on  the  Christian  beatitudes  presented  in  the  military  history 
of  Christendom.     We  are  constantly  reminded  of  Milton's 
abstract  of  the  old  chronicles  of  the  Saxon  Heptarchy,  and 
of   the  strifes  of   the   Hebrew  tribes  in  the  time  of   the 
Judges. 

In  the  compilation  of  the  Tchun-tsieu,  covering  the  period 
from  J22  B.C.  to  his  own  days,  Confucius  (if  he  is  THB 

TCHUN- 

the  author)  must  have  used  documents  nearly,  if  not  TSIHU. 
quite,  contemporary.    Our  expectations  are  height-  ^sd°crhga'r" 
ened  by  his  choice  of  this  work  as  the  one  by  which  acter. 
he  would  be    judged,4  and  by  the  proverb  that,  "  when 

1  Further  account  of  the  Shu-king  will  be  found  in  the  chapters  on  Government  and  Relig- 
ion. We  consider  it  in  this  place  only  as  illustrating  the  Chinese  manner  of  conceiving  history. 

J  Plath,  Feb.  1870,  p.  224. 

8  Especially  from  the  Sse-ki  and  the  I-sse,  in  which  works  Plath  finds  "  a  clearer  idea  of 
the  period  than  can  be  formed  of  many  epochs  of  Western  history." 

«  Menc.,  III.,  ii.,  ix. 


494  STRUCTURES. 

Confucius  wrote  the  Tchun-tsieu,  the  rainbow  turned  to 
pearls."  This  high-flown  sentence  really  expresses  the 
general  reputation  of  the  work.  After  this,  we  are  hardly 
prepared  to  find  such  a  string  of  meagre  annals,  almost 
without  comment  on  their  tiresome  and  often  trivial  data, 
covering  only  the  history  of  the  State  of  Loo  and  its 
relations  with  other  States.  Most  of  the  petty  kingdoms, 
we  are  told,  were  provided  with  similar  chronicles.  No 
one  could  have  invented  this  heap  of  items.  Nor  does  it 
seem  worth  any  one's  while  to  have  altered  the  official 
documents.  But  Dr.  Legge  adds  to  our  discomfort  by 
char  es  cnargmg  Confucius  with  dishonesty  from  moral 
against  cowardice,  his  versions  of  the  crimes  of  high  pub- 
confucms.  jjc  personages  being  often  contradicted  by  the 
commentary  of  Tso.  It  is  to  be  observed  on  the  other 
hand  that  Tso  himself  has  a  very  deep  respect  for  his 
author.  Plath  argues  that  some  of  these  instances  are 
susceptible  of  very  different  explanations  from  those  of 
Legge.1  If  "  the  Master  "  had  really  shown  such  a  spirit 
of  compromise  from  fear  of  power,  Mencius,  the  boldest 
of  reformers,  could  hardly  have  used  language  like  this  : 
"  Confucius  saw  the  falling  away  of  principles,  the  spread 
of  perverse  speaking,  and  oppressive  deeds.  He  completed 
the  '  Spring  and  Autumn,'  and  rebellious  ministers  and 
wicked  sons  were  struck  with  terror."  The  Tso-chuen 
labors  to  show  that  the  apparent  glosses  in  question  have 
well  understood  meanings,  conveying  the  moral  lessons  of 
the  facts  more  powerfully  than  direct  denunciation.2 

We  have  already  referred  to  the  absence  of  philosophical 
was  he  its  form  in  this  singular  record,  which  most  resembles 
author?  an  almanac,  and  to  the  pettiness  of  its  details.  It 
is  not  strange  that  its  authenticity  has  been  denied  by  some 
native  critics,  on  the  ground  that  it  really  contains  nothing 

1  Leben  d.  Confuc.,  pp.  75-78. 

a  Plath,  p.  78  ;  from  the  Tso-ckuen. 


HISTORY.  495 

that  should  "  make  villains  afraid."  l  Yet,  as  early  as  the 
Han,  five  schools  were  discussing  its  meaning.  Confucius, 
we  may  suggest  in  explanation,  comprehended  the  taste  of 
his  countrymen  for  embodied  facts,  for  narrative  in  the 
most  concrete  form,  manipulated  in  a  moral  interest.  Not 
less  competent  was  the  national  mind  to  interpret  those 
familiar  arts  of  treatment  by  which  the  object  was  pursued. 
Our  best  sinologists  can  as  yet  hardly  have  fathomed  the 
subtleties  of  a  literary  rapport  to  which  centuries  were 
busy  in  bringing  a  homogeneous  people. 

The  method  and  quality  of  Chinese  historical  composi- 
tion have  now  been  sufficiently  treated.     They  point   HOW  the 
to  the  way  in  which  these  people  "make  history,"  in    «^"^is- 
a  deeper  than  literary  sense.      Their  permanent  tory." 
character,  as  thus  recorded,  is  a  result  of  apparent  inward 
contrasts,  whose  working  will   best   be   seen    in  a  short 
review  of  their  political  history  since  the  downfall  of  the 
Tcheou. 

The  T'sin  conquest,  and  the  conduct  of  its  leader,  are 
apparently  the  main  pivot  on  which  Chinese  history  T^n  Chi. 
turns.  They  were  not,  however,  the  thorough  re-  hwmg-ti's 

....        ,  root  in  the 

action  on  the  national  life  that  we  might  at  first  demands 
suppose  them.  They  depended,  like  all  seeming  ofhis age- 
intrusions  of  new  elements,  on  forces  long  at  work,  and 
simply  show  what  existing  social  conditions  were  capable 
of  effecting.  Evolution  is  the  law  of  nations,  as  of  reli- 
gions ;  and  Nature  abhors  gaps  and  miracles. 

In  T'sin  Chi-hwang-ti  the  tendencies  which  we  have  traced 
through  all  the  earlier  periods  came  to  inevitable  collision 
and  struggle  for  supremacy,  resulting  in  a  reconstruction 
wholly  in  accord  with  the  inner  life  of  the  race.  Hence  his 
twofold  aspect.  He  is  a  barbarian  ;  fruit  6f  those  fearful 
civil  wars  which  had  shown  the  intense  demand  for  con- 

1  Legge's  Prolegomena;  App.  to  ch.  i. 


496  STRUCTURES. 

solidation  of  petty  tribes  ;  heir  to  the  plans  of  conquest 
already  pursued  by  his  father  to  a  point  where  retreat  was 
impossible,  and  advance  meant  imperial  power.  Yet  he 
was  not,  like  Genghis  or  Tamerlane,  made  for  hurling 
hordes  of  nomads  upon  surrounding  States.  China  afforded 
no  field  for  such  a  function.  He  embodied  the  solution 
which  its  civilization  required.  It  was  at  that  stage  in 
national  development  at  which  Greece  broke  in  pieces  and 
went  down.  China  showed  in  this  semi-barbarian  the 
constructive  ability  to  pass  through  it  into  the  unity  of  a 
great  empire.  What  individual  European  States  did  in 
passing  from  feudal  atomism  to  monarchical  institutions 
was  here  accomplished  on  a  continental  scale.  The  result 
proved  that  the  native  aptitudes  for  mutual  aid  and  social 
order,  for  loyalty  and  industry,  were  none  the  less  real  for 
the  persistent  civil  strife  which  seemed  to  deny  their  exist- 
ence. It  is  one  of  the  most  striking  facts  in  Chinese 
history,  that  great  and  destructive  wars  go  on  in  this 
colossal  empire  without  greatly  deranging  the  invincible 
forces  of  industry.1  In  early  times,  when  China  was  much 
smaller  than  at  present,  the  phenomenon  is  still  more  im- 
pressive. Even  in  these  turmoils  the  literary  class  appear 
to  have  had  sufficient  influence  to  obstruct  that  military 
policy  which  the  times  required.  The  force  of  their  criti- 
cism, sustained  by  the  mass  of  literary  precedents,  may  be 
measured  by  the  cruelties  of  Chi-hwang-ti.  The  issue  of 
this  collision  of  deep-rooted  elements  was  the  triumph 
of  a  national  democratic  tendency  which  had  been  least 
regarded.  But  this  was  not  at  first  apparent,  nor  even 
designed. 

Tching-wang  became  chief  of  T'sin,  after  his  father  had 

His   er     mastered    the    imperial  domains  of   the  House  of 

sonaihis-    Tcheou.      He  is  said  to  have  entered  on  the  study 

of  his  resources  and  functions  while  but  a  boy,  with 

1  Brine  (History  of  the  Tailing  Rebellion,  p.  360)  says  this  most  threatening  and  destruc- 
tive war  did  not  disturb  the  progress  of  commerce  and  trade. 


HISTORY.  497 

a  force  of  genius  that  was  admirable.1  Possessed  by  the 
idea  of  nationality,  he  threw  up  walls  to  protect  the  bor- 
ders, and  engaged  in  other  plans  of  like  magnitude,  such 
as  building  great  highways  and  numerous  palaces  ;  all  of 
which  were  pursued  without  regard  to  their  inroad  on  the 
comforts  and  resources  of  the  people.  Such  were  his  ex- 
actions that  "  no  one  dared  to  use  his  own  grain."  His 
freaks  of  passion  made  it  dangerous  to  oppose  his  will,  and 
he  resorted  to  treacheries  and  bribes.  These  are  the  vices 
of  the  Napoleons  and  Alexanders,  to  whom  it  is  given  to 
effect  great  social  changes  by  military  power.  The  deadly 
strife  he  was  engaged  in  permitted  no  quarter  to  enemies, 
and  no  mercy  to  conspirators.  Remonstrance  and  protest 
are  official  traditions  in  China,  and  Tching-wang  did  not 
escape  them.  Ming-tsao  told  him  his  misdeeds,  and  met 
his  rage  by  calmly  reminding  him  that  it  is  not  the  way 
of  a  great  sovereign  to  seize  an  empire  and  then  destroy 
it.2  Tching-wang  was  subdued  for  a  time,  and  promised 
amendment. 

A  kind  of  insanity,  caught  in  part  from  the  times,  set 
him  upon  searching  out  local  deities  and  supernatural  gifts, 
putting  up  monuments  from  frivolous  motives  in  secluded 
places,  sending  shiploads  of  young  persons  to  some  imag- 
ined isle  beyond  sea  in  return  for  being  endowed  with 
the  gift  of  escaping  death,  all  of  whom  perished.  He  is 
reported  to  have  bestowed  a  fief  on  a  tree  that  sheltered 
him,  and  stripped  a  mountain  of  its  forests  in  revenge  for 
a  storm,  and  put  to  death  all  the  people  of  a  district  be- 
cause a  star  had  fallen  there,  supposed  to  foretell  his  ruin. 
These  may  be  calumnies,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  his 
having  put  to  death  hundreds  of  the  literati,  burned  the 
classical  books,  and  ordered  the  burial  of  great  numbers  of 
living  workmen  in  the  mausoleum  built  for  his  final  sleep. 

1  Tongkien,  De  Mailla,  II.,  37°-  *  Tongkicn,  II.,  377,  378. 

32 


STRUCTURES. 

Confucian  historians  ascribe  these  barbarities  to  the  savage 
habits  of  the  T'sin,  exceptional  among  Chinese  States. 

On  the  other  hand,  his  equalizing  and  consolidating  work 
His  con-  nas  ^^ady  been  described  as  of  the  most  con- 
flict with  structive  character.*  His  persecution  of  the  Con- 
fucians""  fucians  was  based  distinctly  on  charges  that  their 
natural.  incessant  opposition  to  his  edicts  made  the  people 
disorderly,  and  that  they  sacrificed  the  demands  of  the  age 
to  idolatry  of  the  past.  The  conflict  was  between  the  right 
of  discussion  always  popular  in  China,  the  loyalty  of  edu- 
cated men  to  an  ideal  past,  arid  the  humane  traditions  of 
Confucius,  on  the  one  hand,  —  and,  on  the  other,  the  new 
idea  of  military  reconstruction  embodied  in  the  ambition 
of  a  dictator,  a  temporary  evil  that  was  also  a  condition  of 
national  unity.  The  precepts  of  the  teachers  could  not 
avail  in  this  day  of  the  sword.  The  best  way  for  them 
to*  serve  the  future  was  to  die  for  their  faith.  This  they 
seem  to  have  done ;  the  statement,  scarcely  credible  any- 
where but  in  China,  being  that  not  one  of  the  four  hundred 
and  sixty  martyrs  abjured  his  creed. 

The  best  proof  of  the  charges  against  Chi-hwang-ti  is 
the  historical  necessity  of  the  times.  Only  such  a  nature 
as  his  could  have  taken  the  first  step  towards  that  compul- 
sory unity  made  necessary  by  ages  of  social  misery  and  strife 
for  power.  A  new  departure  must  be  taken  ;  no  backward 
look  was  endurable.  His  intense  self-confidence,  his  mor- 
bid hatred  of  the  past  and  contempt  for  its  sacred  tradi- 
tions are  in  the  order  of  things  ;  and  in  excepting  from 
the  doom  of  destruction  books  on  agriculture,  medicine, 
and  divination,  he  showed  himself  still  under  the  influence 
of  some  of  the  strongest  national  tendencies.  The  burn- 
ing of  the  books  was  the  natural  way  of  recommencing 
Chinese  history  with  himself.  Berosus  says  of  Nabonassar 
that  he  destroyed  all  astronomical  records  in  order  that  ex- 
act chronology  might  begin  at  his  reign.  It  is  not  specially 


HISTORY.  499 

Chinese  to  believe  that  human  society  can  be  remade  at  a 
touch.  The  loss  to  Chinese  letters  was  nothing  in  com- 
parison with  that  inflicted  on  the  Greek  by  those  Chris- 
tians who  demolished  the  temple  of  Serapis  in  Egypt.1  The 
French  revolutionists,  in  1793,  abolished  the  literary  socie- 
ties supported  by  the  State,  and  put  to  death  their  leading 
members.  Two  years  afterwards  these  societies  were  re- 
vived, and  formed  the  basis  of  an  Institute  of  Arts  and 
Sciences.2 

Tching-wang  displayed  an  overweening  sense  of  personal 
importance,  which  but  a  few  years  were  needed  to  Hisfunc 
refute.  His  own  function  was  transitional.  "  He  tion  tran- 
thought  his  own  wisdom  effaced  that  of  Yao  and  s 
Shun.  He  took  the  name  Chi-hwang-ti  (First  Sovereign 
Ruler),  and  ordered  that  his  successors  should  be  called 
Hvvang-ti  II.  and  III.  ;  inventing  new  terms  to  describe  his 
own  acts."  3  But  his  dynasty  scarcely  survived  him.  His 
reign  suggested  the  great  demand,  but  did  not  fulfil  it.  Re- 
bellion broke  out  in  all  quarters  ;  for  if  the  people  could 
not  rest  till  they  were  governed  by  one  man,  still  less  could 
they  rest  till  they  were  governed  well.  The  old  .strife  for 
mastery  took  a  new  form.  The  movements  were  popular, 
not  political ;  not  a  war  of  States,  but  uprisings  Overthrow 
against  oppression.  Rebel  chiefs  rose  from  the  T'sin! 
masses ;  day-laborers  and  peasants,  at  the  head  of  multi- 
tudes armed  with  clubs,  rakes,  and  poles,  ill-fitted,  as  was 
soon  evident,  "  to  match  the  barbed  lances  of  T'sin."  But 
T'sin  fell ;  and  then  the  rebel  chieftain  of  highest  repute 
was  driven  to  despair  by  the  prowess  of  a  peasant  —  Lui- 
pang — who  became  master  of  China  under  the  title  of 
the  Prince  of  Han.4  He  forbade  his  followers  to  commit 
excesses,  and  abolished  oppressions. 

1  See  Me'nard,  Polyth.  Hellenique,  pp.  82-86. 

3  Mdsnard,  Hist,  de  PA  end.  Franc.,  p.  183.  »  Tongk.  II.  393,  394. 

*  Pfitzmaier  Wien  Akad.,  1859. 


5OO  STRUCTURES. 

The  old  causes  worked  on.  The  Han  were  heirs,  not  to 
slow  a  united  State,  but  to  factions  within  and  Tar- 
movement  tar  raids'  from  without.  Not  for  four  hundred  and 
mentsof  fifty  years  were  Southern  and  Western  China 
unity.  really  incorporated  into  the  empire.  A  great  nu- 
cleus for  unity  had  been  formed ;  but  local  autonomy  was 
The  Han.  also  a  rooted  tradition,  and  was  slow  to  be  satisfied  : 
so  secular  are  all  great  changes  in  this  immense  empire, 
which  is  of  itself  hardly  less  than  a  race.  Neither  the 
virtues  of  Wan~ti  (180-157  B.C.),  the  patronage  of  letters 
and  the  revival  of  the  libraries  ;  nor  the  military  genius  of 
Wu-ti  and  his  long  struggle  with  the  Tartars ;  nor  all  the 
glories  of  the  Han,  such  as  the  invention  of  paper  and  ink, 
and  the  emancipation  of  slaves,  —  prevented  the  division 
of  the  empire  into  "  Three  Kingdoms,"  warring  for  a  cen- 
tury (A.D.  168-265).  The  story  is  told  in  the  San-koue- 
tchi,  a  historic  romance  in  Homeric  style,  most  popular  to 
this  day,  because  these  national  traditions  have  never  been 
weakened  by  intrusive  faiths  or  races.1 

Scarcely  was  this  strife  ended  by  the  accession  of  the  T'sin, 
when  the  Tartars  separated  Northern  from  South- 
ized  under  em  China,  forming  no  less  than  sixteen  indepen- 
the  T'ang.  fon£  gtates  within  the  former;  and  the  imperial 
throne  was  transferred  to  Nanking.  Two  or  three  centu- 
ries later,  the  earlier  T'ang  monarchs  saw  the  completion 
of  that  unity  which  had  been  slowly  evolving  for  nearly 
a  thousand  years.  The  Tartars  excluded,  Tai-tsung  estab- 
lished the  educational  system  that  now  rules  the  empire 
arid  holds  it  fast  together*  But  the  later  T'ang  were  de- 
generate, and  the  Tartar  again  divided  North  and  South. 
To  Southern  China  alone  belonged  the  Augustan  age  of 
the  Sung  II.  (960-1260),  the  great  epoch  of  printing,  spec- 
ulative philosophy  and  the  later  histories ;  and  the  Mongols, 

1  This  romance,  which  gives  the  story  of  the  great  Yellow-Bonnet  Rebellion  of  the  second 
century,  has  been  translated  by  Theo.  Pavie. 


HISTORY.  5OI 

already  at  home  in  the  North,  followed  this  famous  dynasty 
with  a  foreign  regime.  Now  for  a  time  were  real-  The  Mon- 
ized  the  grandest  dreams  of  national  unity  as  well  JJjJf,,™*1" 
as  glory.  From  this  time  forward  there  is  in  every  nation, 
sense  a  Chinese  nation.  In  a  single  century,  popular  pat- 
riotism substituted  a  native  dynasty  under  the  proud  title 
of  the  Ming  (splendor) ;  opened  by  a  deliverer,  who,  sprung 
from  the  laboring  class  and  the  Buddhist  heresy,  justified 
his  origin  by  announcing  that  the  glory  of  a  prince 

...  .  The  Ming. 

was  not  in  having  sumptuous  marbles,  but  in  rul- 
ing a  happy  people,  by  great  extension  of  the  power  and 
dignity  of  China,  and  by  a  code  famous  for  its  humanity 
and  wisdom.  Yet  rebellion  was  still  a  constant  of  the 
national  life.  The  Ming  were  divided.1  The  sons  of  the 
founder  were  in  perpetual  feud.  But  Peking  became 
the  fixed  metropolis,  and  the  national  code  now  in  use 
was  compiled.  China  opened  its  foreign  intercourse  in  a 
style  of  condescension,  betokening  assurance  of  sovereign 
claims.  Twenty-one  histories  were  gathered  up  from  as 
many  dynastic  annals  into  her  archives.  Great  libraries 
and  hosts  of  commentators  concentrated  the  literature  of 
the  past,  that  nothing  which  had  helped  to  form  the  nation 
should  be  forgotten.  Not  less  worthy  of  record  was  the 
guidance  of  the  State  for  a  regency  of  nearly  twenty  criti- 
cal years  by  female  hands. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that,  from  the  completion  of  na- 
tional union  in  the  age  of  the  Han,  the  exercise  Adminis- 
of  administrative  powers  by   women   has  been  a  ^^ 
marked  feature  of  Chinese  government.     In  two  china, 
instances  of  that  period  the  Empress  Dowager  governed 
with  great  energy,  if  not  with  womanly  virtues  ;  and  this, 
although  an  old  law  pronounced  women  incapable  of  ruling. 
The  Tartar  line  of  Wei  (northern  China,  sixth  century)  was 
governed  by  a  woman,  who  led  armies  in  the  field.     At 

1  See  China  Review^  September  and  October,  1872. 


502  f  STRUCTURES. 

various  periods  of  the  Tang  and  Sung,  the  State  was  di- 
rected by  rulers  in  the  harem.  The  title  of  empress  has 
been  borne,  once  at  least,  for  a  long  series  of  years.1  The 
chroniclers  do  not  speak  favorably  of  feminine  managers  of 
State  :  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  they  should.  It  has 
been  more  fashionable,  in  China  and  elsewhere,  to  lay 
public  demoralization  at  the  doors  of  the  sex  than  public 
blessings.  The  Ming  was  equally  under  female  influence 
in  the  appointment  of  officials  and  the  direction  of  its 
policy.  In  recent  times  the  imperial  authority  has  been 
exercised  by  two  women,  whose- support  has  greatly  aided 
Prince  Kung  in  the  liberal  foreign  policy  which  he  has 
been  engaged  in  inaugurating. 

The  present   line    (Tsing)    has   maintained    nationality 
through  continued  collisions  of  central   and  local 

The  earlier 

Manchu  interests.  The  Chinese  were  conquered  less  by 
emperors.  forejgn  arms  t^an  ^y  intestine  strife.  Introduced 
by  the  native  feuds,  obtaining  mastery  of  the  Southern 
provinces  by  a  barbarous  war,  and  contending  with  the 
mischiefs  arising  from  bad  administration  and  their  own 
ignorance  of  many  of  the  requirements  of  an  old  and  com- 
plex civilization,  the  Manchus  nevertheless  found  materials 
for  organizing  the  best  imperial  government  ever  effected 
in  the  country.  The  transportation  of  the  whole  coast 
population  of  a  department  into  the  interior  as  a  protective 
measure  against  piracy,  though  of  doubtful  policy  and  speed- 
ily retraced,  showed  great  executive  power  in  a  line  just 
seated  on  the  throne  of  an  immense  nation.  The  division 
of  offices  between  the  two  races,  and  a  generally  wise  treat- 
ment of  old  customs  and  titles,  with  systematic  civil  admin- 
istration rapidly  consolidated  the  State.  The  earlier  Tsing 

1  Chow  dynasty,  seventh  century ;  see  Mayers,  Chin.  Manual,  p.  257.  Women  have 
governed  in  Japan  more  frequently  than  in  almost  any  other  State,  and  the  Annals  abound 
in  allusions  to  conspicuous  talents  and  virtues  shown  by  many  of  them  in  public  functions. 
Prejudices  of  the  Pauline  sort  do  not  seem  to  have  reached  the  "  Empire  of  the  Rising 
Sun." 


HISTORY.  503 

rulers  were  men  of   high  abilities  and  virtues,  and  com- 
petent to  any  constructive  achievement.     Yet  not  Theoid 
an  hour  of  this  foreign  rule  has  been  free  from  internal 
local  disturbances,  which  would  have  been  the  ruin  ™^° 
of  any  empire  of  less  cohesive  power.      Ming  re-  contimie- 
volts  in  the  south  ;  pirates  infesting  the  coast,  and  outlaws 
the  provinces  ;  Mohammedan  and  Tartar  rebellions  ;   com- 
motions on  the  accession  of  the  profligate  Kia-king  at  the 
close  of  the  last  century,  till  the  palace  was  assaulted  by 
armed  bands,  —  transmitted  a  coil  of  domestic  troubles  to 
the  thirty  years'  reign  of  Tao-kwang,  whose  solution  de- 
manded all  that  was  claimed  in  his  lofty  title  of  the  "  Light 
of  Reason."     To  these  were  now  added  a  prodigious  in- 
crease of  secret  societies,1  the  opium  war  with  England, 
and  private  afflictions  which  reduced  the  ill-starred  Di.^™^ 
monarch    to   despair.      An    edict,    announcing    in  reigns  of 
tender  terms  the  death  of  a  beloved  wife  who  had  anTnTe^ 
shared  the  whole  of  his  troubled  reign,  was  speedily  fung> 
followed  by  the  proclamation  of  his  own.     His  burden  of  a 
bankrupt  and   disorganized   empire   hopelessly  divided  on 
questions  of  foreign  policy,  with  renewed  wars  and  revolts, 
and  above  all  the  desolating  Tai-ping  rebellion,  fell  (1852) 
on  the  shoulders  of  Hien-fung  ("Complete  Abundance"), 
who,  spite  of  his  title,  ended  life  in  forced  exile  in  less 
than   ten  years  ;  and  the  succession  of  a  child  fitly  sym- 
bolized the  impotence  of  imperial  will  to  deal  with  these 
elements  of  dissolution. 

At  this  juncture,  when  the  death  of  the  Empire  was  con- 
fidently predicted  by  European  writers  and  states-   Recovery 
men,  arose  a  new  policy  embodied  in  an  unfore-  p"fne*e 
seen  personal  force,  and  testifying  to  the  remedial   Kung. 
resources  of  the  national  life.     A  regency,  hostile  to  every 

1  For  an  account  of  these  secret  associations,  on  which  the  Tai-ping  leaders  drew  for  their 
most  efficient  resources,  see  Macfarlane,  Chin  Revolution,  p.  108;  De  Mas,  La  Chine,  I. 
159,  160  ;  Ckin.  Repos.,  February,  1845.  Callery  and  Ivan  say  that  "  whenever  three  people 
are  together  'the  Triad'  is  among  them." 


5O4  STRUCTURES. 

concession  in  dealing  with  foreign  States,  was  overthrown 
by  a  combination  of  three  members  of  the  imperial  family, 
—  the  widow  of  Hien-fung,  his  favorite  queen  (women  of 
political  tastes  and  capacities),  and  his  brother,  Prince 
Ktmg.  If  the  sagacity  of  this  statesman  shall  be  success- 
ful in  directing  the  present  critical  transition,  it  will  be 
owing  in  no  small  degree  to  the  firm  and  liberal  conduct 
of  the  two  queens.  Left  by  Hien-fung  on  his  flight  from 
Pe-king,  and  appointed  to  treat  with  the  allies,  Kung  had 
the  address  to  avail  himself  of  the  indignation  of  the  em- 
presses at  being  abandoned  by  the  weak  sovereign,  and  to 
secure  their  aid  in  the  coup  cTttat  which  changed  the  face 
of  public  affairs.1  He  put  the  customs  under  European 
direction,  appointed  regular  official  fees,  protected  religious 
freedom,  and,  though  assailed  by  a  powerful  reaction  under 
lead  of  the  famous  general  San-ko-lin-sin,  set  the  boy  prince 
(Tong-che)  on  reforming  his  government,  and  conducting 
affairs  with  clemency  and  wisdom.  How  the  death  of  San- 
ko-lin-sin,  the  drought,  and  the  disputes  about  Hien-fung's 
funeral  rites  became  turning  points  of  political  change 
cannot  here  be  specified.  Kung's  management  of  foreign 
affairs  has  shown  no  little  dignity,  especially  in  his  opposi- 
tion to  European  aid  in  the  Tai-ping  war,  and  in  preparing 
China  to  accept  those  inevitable  changes  in  her  relations, 
which,  if  too  violently  carried  out,  would  have  destroyed 
her.  He  has  proved  not  only  his  own  genius,  but  the  force 
of  unity  at  the  disposal  of  the  Empire  in  times  of  peril. 

The  rebellions  and  secret  associations  which  continually 
Chinese  assa^  tne  State,  and  produce  great  destruction  of 
rebellions  life  and  property,2  never  aim  at  national  disunion. 
ft°dissoi!r  The  Tai-Pmg  princes  sought  to  expel  the  foreign 
tionofthe  dynasty,  but  not  to  abolish  imperialism.  The  title 
of  the  chief  was  imperial,  and  he  assumed  all  the 

1  Rev.  des  Deux  Mondes,  August  i,   1870. 

3  See    SacharofFs    startling  account  of  the   fluctuation  in  population   from   this   cause. 
Arb.  d.  R^^ss.  Gesandsch.  II. 


HISTORY.  5O5 

dignities  of  Chinese  sovereignty  over  the  world.  The 
whole  network  of  carbonarism  that  covers  the  southern 
provinces,  —  Triads,  White  Lilies,  Yellow-Bonnets,  Pure 
Tea  and  Solar  Sects,  —  assumes  the  unity  of  the  State.1 
The  organic  vigor  of  this  instinct  renders  feasible  an  ex- 
treme license  of  revolt.  The  Yellow-Bonnet  slogan  in 
the  second  century  is  significant :  "  The  Gray  Heaven  is 
dead,  the  Yellow  Heaven  succeeds,  a  new  (dynastic)  cycle 
shall  be  the  joy  of  the  world." 

The  persistence  of   these  vital  antinomies  in   Chinese 
political  history,  neither  overcoming  the  other,  but 
thriving  by  mutual  reactions,  is  of  great  interest, 
Not  only  does  the  Yellow  Race  "  make  history,"  tendencies 
as  they  make  all  thought,  by  the  mean  between  ^f^ 
contrary  forces  ;  not  only  does  this  dualism  of  Chi-  state. 
nese  nature —  the  two-fold  diagram  of  Fo-hi,  the  continuous 
and  the  broken  line,  the  Yang  and  Yin  —  organize  itself  in 
government,  literature,  and  life; — a  larger  generalization 
is  to  be   suggested.      A  centripetal   force    of    nationality 
apparent  throughout   a   history  of  three  thousand  years, 
an  instinct  of  solidarity  as  powerful  to  resist  all  atomizing 
tendencies  as  it  is  powerless  to  destroy  them,  is  a  marvel- 
lous witness  to  the  strength  of  those  qualities  that  Forceof 
constitute  race.     In  comparison  with  this  strength  ™" 
of  race,  special  institutions  and  customs  are  trivial,  its  practical 
and  may  be  exhausted  by  strife,  while  the  great  le 
reserved  force  that  has  produced  them  shall  stand  without 
change  of  curve  or  angle  in  its  immortal  form.     These  are 
the  qualities  that  explain  history  ;  its  philosophy  is  in  their 
common  laws.     To  them  a  thousand  years  are  as  a  day ; 
'tis  the  same  sun  is  shining  at  even  and  morn ;  the  germ 
of  the  end  is  in  the  beginning.     We  can  read  our  living 
Germany  in  Tacitus ;    our  France  in  Caesar ;   the  Feudal 
System,  the  Modern  Codes,  in  Roman  Jurists  of  the  Em- 

1  Macfarlane  and  De  Mas. 


506  STRUCTURES. 

pire;  Greeks,  Persians,  Hindus,  in  the  Aryan  Rigveda  ; 
the  actual  Chinese  Empire,  in  the  classic  Shi  and  Shu. 
The  lords  that  descend  in  blood  and  bone  are  stronger 
than  the  masters  who  build  and  destroy  from  age  to  age. 
They  are  deeper  than  governments,  and  transform  faiths 
into  their  image.  They  are  the  meaning  of  titles  and 
names,  political  and  religious.  Their  secret  strength  must 
be  respected  in  all  efforts  to  introduce  influences  from 
abroad.  For  their  apparent  contradictions  are  parts  of 
a  more  subtle  whole,  to  which  each  is  essential,  and  helps 
to  protect  and  balance  the  rest. 

Such  oppositions  may  be  traced  in  all  races,  in  different 
Depth  and  forms  which  point  to  some  deeper  unity  that  is 
meaning  of  unorgamzable  and  unseen.  When  the  German 
iemto°be  tribes  scattered  themselves  over  the  Roman  em- 
soived.  pirej  tnev  were  thoroughly  comminuted  by  local 
wars  ;  but  the  cohesion  of  race  has  proved  stronger,  and 
makes  Germany  to-day  the  compactest  of  European  powers. 
The  petty  warfare  of  States,  which  forbade  India  ever  to 
become  a  nation  under  native  rule,  did  not  prevent  a  stamp 
of  unity  on  Hindu  life,  which  must  be  recognized  in  every 
effort  to  ameliorate  or  organize  it  from  without.  Panslav- 
ism,  not  religious  conviction,  is  the  force  that  precipitates 
Russia  on  the  Turk,  and  summons  the  scattered  members 
of  a  race  out  of  wide  dispersion  and  hostile  relations  at 
last.  Similar  facts  of  race  have  impressed  us  throughout 
these  studies  of  Chinese  history.  The  oldest  form  of  these 
contrasts  is  in  the  hostile  relation  of  those  two  tendencies 
which  prompt  men  to  settled  and  to  nomad  life.  This  hos- 
tility crops  out  in  every  state.  It  is  Cain  and  Abel;  Iran 
and  Turan  ;  Rome  and  the  Barbarians  ;  strife  of  manufac- 
tures and  commerce  ;  of  labor  fixed  and  migratory.  It  is 
the  antagonism  of  rest  and  motion  ;  of  equilibrium  and 
irritability  ;  of  central  and  local  powers ;  of  unity  and 
variety.  It  reaches  down  to  the  questions  of  Federal  and 


HISTORY.  5O7 

State  rights,  not  yet  harmonized  in  the  most  advanced 
nations.  It  must  work  itself  out  to  solution,  both  in  the 
Chinese  Empire  and  the  American  Republic,  through  larger 
experience  of  the  mutual  dependence  and  social  harmony 
that  lie  predicted  and  demanded  in  the  seeming  hate. 
Neither  side  can  be  destroyed.  This  is  our  solemn  admo- 
nition and  sole  guarantee  amidst  the  problems  of  our  day. 

We  are  liable  to  forget  that  these  elements  of  construc- 
tion exist  within  a  State,  and  must  be  developed  Internai 
by  internal  forces.  It  is  the  current  belief  that  forces  to  be 
the  Tai-pings  were  suppressed,  and  China  saved,  ™ 
by  foreign  power.  But  rebellions  are  chronic  in  China ; 
yet  there  is  a  China  still,  and  probably  as  strong  now  as 
ever.  The  Tai-pings  were  checked  quite  as  much  by  their 
own  excesses  which  made  them  intolerable,  and  by  the 
opening  of  country  dykes  upon  their  armies,  as  by  the 
forces  of  Burgevine  and  Ward,  and  the  fleets  of  Europe. 
Three  great  foreign  wars  have  not  weakened  this  passive 
Chinese  nationality.  Perhaps  the  most  important  sugges- 
tion afforded  by  our  review  of  its  history  is  this.  The 
incessant  jealousy  of  centralized  powers  on  the  part  of  the 
people,  and  the  ease  with  which  rebellions  are  fomented, 
have  really  helped  to  nourish  the  instinct  of  unity.  The 
evident  weakness  of  the  Pe-king  government  is  its  safety, 
since  it  forbids  the  suppression  of  a  certain  democratic 
element  essential  to  Chinese  faith  in  political  obedience. 
A  proverb  says  :  "  When  the  Empire  has  been  long  divided, 
it  will  certainly  be  united ;  when  long  united,  it  will  as 
certainly  be  divided." 


VI. 

POETRY. 


POETRY. 


all  nations,"  says  Ampere,  "  the  Chinese  seem  to 
be   fondest    of   poetry.     All  the   educated  The  pas- 
write  verses.     As  the  hero  of  their  novels  carries  rhylhrnic 
the  heart  of  the  heroine  by  poetic  skill,  so  in  pub-  expression, 
lie  office  it  is  almost  a  necessity  that  the  talent  for  states- 
manship should  be  united  with  the  gift  of  song."    "  In  olden 
time,"  says  Pan-kou,  "  the  sages  themselves  did  not  compare 
with  the  poets  in  estimation." 

The  occurrence  of  rhythm  in  the  early  laws  of  nations 
so  different  as  the  Hindus,  Greeks,  Hebrews,  Celts,  Chi- 
nese, is  to  be  explained  in  part  from  the  aid  it  affords  in 
memorizing  data  not  committed  to  writing.  Rhythm  is 
not  allied  to  innovation,  but  is  in  many  respects  its  A  conser. 
antagonist.  It  has  received  in  China  a  develop- 
ment proportionate  to  the  conservative  element  of 
the  national  character:  a  love  of  orderly  and  periodic  recur- 
rence. Life  is  here  a  series  of  returns  on  familiar  tracks  ; 
a  chant  of  burdens  and  refrains,  like  those  which  look  so 
childish  in  the  oldest  Shi-king  odes.  Numerical  categories 
make  up  the  science  of  cosmical  relations,  reflecting  the 
mental  structure  of  the  race.  Pythagoras,  Kepler,  and 
modern  science  are  here  foreshadowed  on  planes  of  instinct 
and  habitual  formulizing.  Music  was  inseparable  from 
poetry  in  the  oldest  time,  and  the  pleasure  felt  in  its  re- 
current tones  had  much  to  do  with  the  marvellous  powers 
ascribed  to  it  by  the  early  Chinese.  The  Shi-king  odes 


512  STRUCTURES. 

reputed  oldest  are  squared  and  rhymed,  and  later  culture 
has  tended  to  symmetry  of  meaning,  a  music  for  thought 
as  well  as  ear.  Rhyme- hunting  is  an  antiquarian  mania 
among  these  knights  of  the  treadmill.  The  delight  with 
which  every  ballad  of  the  Tang  or  Sung  has  been  set  to 
an  air  of  its  own  is  as  intense  as  that  of  their  fathers  in 
their  kin,  or  lyre  of  silken  cords.  Rhymed  improvisation 
is  a  national  amusement. 

The  unmalleable  square  signs  seem  to  yield  to  a  secret 
Music  and  dissolving  spell,  and  flow  into  music  as  readily  as 
rhythm  in  our  elastic  alphabet.  Chinese  work-power  is  as 
wonderfully  illustrated  by  the  laws  of  poetic  com- 
position that  had  resulted  from  ages  of  incubation  in  the 
days  of  the  T'ang,  as  by  any  of  its  industrial  achievements. 
Probably  no  nation  has  such  a  mass  of  criticism  on  such  an 
amount  of  native  product  in  the  poetic  art.1 

This  love  of  recurrent  form  is  shown  in  a  trick  of  the 
older  poets,  who  liked  to  use  sounds  without  meaning, 
merely  to  emphasize  this  safe  return  to  the  same  impres- 
sion ;  as  if  we  should  add  the  mere  sound,  "  alas,"  to  every 
line,  even  where  there  was  no  reference  to  grief.  Parallel- 
ism, beginning  in  the  four-line  strophe  of  the  Shi-king,  was 
extended  prescriptively  from  a  rhyming  accord  of  accent 
and  of  tone  to  every  word  in  the  two  successive  lines  of  a 
distich  ;  "  full "  and  "  empty  "  words  must  be  opposed  to 
each  other,  and  the  successive  steps  by  which  the  idea  of 
the  verse  must  be  evolved  were  defined  by  rule. 

In  stormy  times  greater  license  broke  forth,  and  criticism 
Rhythmic  itself  deprecated  such  formal  construction  ;  but  the 
legislation.  refinement  of  the  T'ang  carried  rhythm-legislation 
to  such  a  degree,  that  Chinese  poetry  has  acquired  the  bad 
reputation  of  being  a  mere  thing  of  mechanical  cadences 
and  measures.  A  native  author  says  that  "  the  parallelism 
should  be  such  a  chain,  that  not  a  line  can  be  omitted  with- 

1  Wylie,  pp.  203,  204. 


POETRY.  513 

out  altering  the  point  of  the  whole  poem." l     An  art  at 
least  of  interfusing  sound  and  sense. 

A  curious  form  of  this  passion  for  parallelism  is  to  hang 
corresponding  rhymes  side  by  side,  or  on  opposite  Parallelism 
walls,  on  paper  or  wood,  and  always  in  pairs.  Chi- 
nese gymnastics  are  feats  of  versification  in  this  style  ;  'tis 
a  dainty  civilization,  whose  amusement  is  capping  verses 
and  constructing  measures.  Even  geographies  march  in 
rhyme.  The  "  Two  Literary  Maidens  "  presents  a  literary 
tournament,  in  which  one  of  the  verses  to  be  paralleled 
combined  artfully  the  titles  of  the  seven  books  of  Mencius ; 
and  most  of  the  themes  were  questions  in  mythology  or 
history. 

With  the  exception  of  the  epic,  which  implies  ability  to 
combine  all  experiences  under  inspiration  of  a  great  wide  scope 
religious  faith  and  national  ideal,  the  Chinese  have  ofp°etic 

treatment 

worked  up  their  syllabic  signs  and  meagre  rhymes 
into  every  form   of  poetic  composition.     In   odes,  c 
idyls,  epigrams,  ethical  and  didactic  poems,  proverbs,  effu- 
sions of  all  moods,  their  fertility  has  equalled,  if  it  has  not 
greatly  surpassed,  that  of  any  nation  in  the  world. 

Do  appearances  deceive  us,  then,  as  to  the  fitness  of  the 
language  for  poetic  expression  ?     Admitting  an  im-  Facilitieg 
perfect  sense  of  rhyme,  Davis  has  pointed  out  the  »n*he 
numerous   diphthongs   that  vary  the  form  of  the 
monosyllabic  feet,  the  varying  accents  and  tones,  the  con- 
stant caesura,  the  absence  of  harsh  sounds,  and  the  fitness 
of  the  equal,  unbroken  words  for  parallelism.     To   these 
capacities   he   ascribes  the   progress    which   "  makes    the 
poetry  of  the  T'ang  as  far  beyond   the  Shi-king  for  har- 
monious verse,  as  Virgil  is  beyond  Ennius,  or  Pope  beyond 
Chaucer."  2 

We  have  only  to  insert  our  connective  particles  between 

1  See  St.  Denys's  interesting  work  on  the  Poetry  of  the  T'ang  (Paris,  1812). 
8  Transact.  R.  A.  Soc,,  1830.     We  hope  the  statement  has  a  force  independent  of  the 
value  of  this  latter  illustration,  which  to  our  own  taste  is  quite  an  unfortunate  one. 

33 


514  STRUCTURES. 

the  vivid  symbolism  of  the  picture-signs  to  reveal  real  poetic 
meaning.1  Nor  are  these  symbols  reserved  for  poetry  ; 
they  belong  to  common  prose,  being  crystallized  in  the 
signs  :  as  if  our  alphabet  were  made  of  real  images  instead 
of  conventional  forms.  Of  course  much  of  their  meaning 
is  lost  in  the  attraction  of  interest  to  the  written  shape. 
The  inspiration  of  these  enthusiasts  is  probably  less  in 
their  ideas  than  in  their  pencils.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
realism  will  keep  their  eyes  more  in  contact  with  these 
object-pictures,  and  maintain  a  certain  scenic  interest, 
enhanced  by  the  aesthetic  habit  of  constructing  them  with 
elegance  and  suggestiveness  of  form. 

Every  thing  is  thus  brought  to  fixed  symbolic  meaning. 
The  animal  world  has  functional  relations  with  life. 

Extent  of 

symbolism.  The  dragon,  phoenix,  ki-lin,  and  tortoise  are  com- 
umais.  pjex  embiems  Of  power,  good  fortune,  and  occult 
destiny,  as  familiar  to  domestic  art  as  to  mythic  lore.  The 
fox  symbolizes  official  life  ;  the  wild  goose  is  conjugal  fidel- 
ity, in  songs,  dramas,  tales.  Goose  and  duck  hold  the  same 
place  as  the  stork  in  German  folklore  ;  and  there  seems  no 
good  reason  why  our  preferences  for  lions  and  eagles  should 
despise  these  less  brutal  images  of  perseverance,  loyalty, 
and  love.  The  magpie,  a  mystic  newsbearer  and  Chinese 
Hermes,  plays  the  part  of  prophet  in  the  legends  of  royal 
and  race  origins.  The  wild-ox  tail  floats  from  the  Manchu 
standard  in  wars  and  hunts.  Clay  figures  of  the  cow  are 
divided  at  agricultural  fetes  ;  painted  sea-monsters  are 
guardian  figure-heads  for  the  junks  ;  boats  resemble  fishes. 
The  peach-tree  is  undying  truth  ;  its  stone,  long 
life  ;  its  blossom,  opening  love.  The  /«^-tree,  of 
white  flower,  scented  leaf,  and  healing  gum,  is  the  dwelling 
of  genii ;  and  its  autumnal  splendor  chants  with  hundred 

1  Thus  man  (of  his)  word  is  fidelity ;  word-nail  (ed)  is  a  bargain ;  season  (of  the)  perfect 
number,  antiquity  ;  rice  (in  the)  mouth,  comfort ;  mountain  (of)  jade,  the  imperial  voice  ;  jade 
(like)  sheets,  paper;  platform  (of) jade,  the  shoulders  ;  jade  (like)  person,  a  beauty. 


POETRY.  515 

tongues  the  lesson  that  "beauty  is  most  beautiful  in  decay."1 
The  poets  have  found  a  bird  that  celebrates  the  changes  of 
life,  singing  twice  a  year,  when  the  flowers  open  and  when 
they  fade.2  And  songs  describe  an  enchanted  ash  in  sym- 
pathy with  national  destiny,  that  moans  when  a  dynasty  is 
failing,  and  sings  when  heroic  deeds  are  done.3 

Colors  are  symbolic,  and  yield  a  pictorial  register  of 
offices  and  personal  relations.4  The  Tcheou-li  is  a 

r  Colors. 

digest  of  forms  and  ceremonies,  in  which  every 
thing  seems  to  be  taken  up  into  symbolism  and  gifted  with 
a  functional  meaning  beyond  itself.  Doubtless  this  taste 
for  an  inner  sense  in  things  adds  suggestiveness  to  the 
ideographs,  and  gives  charm  to  poetic  composition  with 
their  visible  types. 

A  poetic  impulse  is  apparent,  also,  in  the  national  passion 
for  floriculture,  which  often  reaches  delicate  and  Flowers, 
tender  sentiment ;  in  the  selection  of  proper  names  &c- 
from  natural  objects  ;  in  the  metaphorical  shop  signs  ;  in 
the  flowery  titles  of  books,  and  the  scribbling  of  impromptu 
verses  on  every  thing  that  will  carry  them.  If  this  love  of 
endowing  things  with  human  meaning  does  not  unfold  into 
high  poetic  power,  it  is  because  of  a  too  close  contact 
with  concrete  details.  It  spends  most  of  its  force  its  formal- 
in combining  and  varying  given  materials  in  recog-  lsm> 
nized  ways  and  for  routine  experiences  ;  and  memory  is 
mistaken  for  fancy,  and  even  for  imagination.  Tricks  of 
sensational  effect  are  required  to  give  an  air  of  invention 
and  novelty.  Hence  subtle  and  mystified  allusions  to  facts, 
traditions,  customs,  or  classic  books  : 6  something  is  artfully 
left  to  be  divined,  a  half  light  is  turned  on  an  object  already 
well  known,  making  a  riddle  or  an  ellipsis  of  its  common- 

1  Notes  and  Queries,  III.  No.  2.  *  St.  Denys,  p.  175. 

8  Stent's  Jade  Chaplet,  p.  49. 

4  Red  is  virtue  ;  a  red  heart  is  the  moral,  a  vermilion  pencil  the  political,  ideal.  White  is 
purity  and  mourning  ;  yellow,  supremacy  ;  purple,  for  grandsons ;  green,  for  princesses. 

8  See  the  subjects  given  out  for  prize  poems  in  Les  Jeunes  Filles  Littrees,  I.  125  ;  Davis, 
in  preface  to  the  Fortunate  Union. 


5l6  STRUCTURES. 

place  ;  even  verbal  or  rhythmic  analogies  are  exploited  with 
an  air  of  mystery. 

A  large  portion  of  Chinese  descriptive  poetry  thus  far 
Qualities  translated  is  a  reiteration  of  certain  moods,  reach- 
6  *nS  ^6  same  P°int  of  experience,  but  seldom  trans- 
cending  it.  The  pervasiveness  of  these  plaintive 
or  happy  moods  gives  a  unity  to  detailed  pictures  of  Nature, 
often  of  great  beauty,  which  makes  them  effective  pieces  of 
art.  But  they  lack  the  inspiration  of  a  sustained  sense  of 
human  relations  with  infinity.  The  sense  is  not  wanting  ; 
it  is  passive  and  unproductive.  The  Chinese  poet  feels  the 
mystery  of  the  world,  is  lost  in  the  problem  of  origin  and 
end  ;  but  he  is  not  lifted  by  them  to  think  or  imagine.  He 
rests  in  reverie  ;  he  sinks  back  from  the  vague  feeling  of 
helplessness  before  change  and  loss,  into  passive  resigna- 
tion or  sybarite  self-indulgence.  He  finds  sympathy  in 
Nature  with  the  exile's  despondency  or  the  lover's  pain  ;  he 
invokes  beauty  and  wine  to  offset  the  brevity  of  life  ;  he 
less  often  escapes  from  these  concessions  and  commonplaces 
into  manly  protest  or  independent  faith.  Yet  there  is  often 
a  delicate  impressibility  in  these  elegiac  appeals  to  Nature  ; 
and  in  the  happier  moods  it  is  quickened  into  a  boldness 
of  fancy  which  reminds  us  of  the  abandon  of  the  Celtic 
bards. 

The  besetting  fault  of  weakness  and  sentimentality  is 
N  counterbalanced  by  the  astonishing  compactness  and  ellip- 
tical force  of  the  language,  and  by  a  realism  which  deals 
directly  with  the  facts  of  experience.  A  native  good  sense, 
fully  awake  to  the  dangers  of  the  national  temperament, 
shows  itself  in  sound  judgments  and  counsels  on  the  poetic 
art.  For  example  :  — 

"  Say  common  things  in  a  simple  and  noble  style  :  introduce  his- 

Good          torical  allusions   naturally."      "  Do  not  force   your   talent. 

counsels  to   Whether  you  would  describe  emotions  with  seriousness,  or 

paint  things  supernatural  and  prodigious,  follow  freely  your 


POETRY.  5  1 7 

inspiration."     "  Let  the  thought  go  deep  ;  but  let  not  the  labor  appear  : 
let  all  the  parts  harmonize,  as  by  Nature."  ' 

We  must  beware  of  inferring  from  the  utilitarian  reputa- 
tion of  the  Chinese  an  absence  of  sentiment  or  veneration 
emotional  aspiration.  The  poet  is  for  them  the  forthe 
ideal  of  genius,  and  "  primus  inter  pares  "  in  the 
literary  and  governing  classes.  His  gift  has  always  been 
the  passport  to  high  office,  and  prince  and  people  alike 
bend  before  the  lines  of  his  pencil.  Kings  engrave  his 
sentences  upon  stone,  invest  him  with  royal  robes,  and  when 
guilty  of  driving  him  into  exile  or  to  proud  withdrawal  have 
sought  his  forgiveness  with  pleadings  and  gifts.  A  not 
uncommon  tradition  of  poets  describes  them  as  withdraw- 
ing into  solitude  to  escape  corrupt  courts  or  degrading 
concessions,  and  composing  immortal  verses  at  home  in 
conscious  self-respect.  This  poetry  of  the  exiled  or  dis- 
graced censors  of  imperial  vices  has  a  manly  ring,  and  tri- 
umphantly refutes  the  prevailing  impression  of  the  poet's 
function  in  "  Oriental  despotisms."  We  have  found  no 
adulatory  petitions,  even  in  the  tyrannical  days  of  the  later 
Han,  degrading  the  masters  of  verse  who  have  won  a  na- 
tional fame.2  The  line  of  honor  reaches  through  Chinese 
official  history  in  notable  examples  of  a  martyr  spirit  whose 
natural  vehicle  seems  to  have  been  poetry,3  and  its  argu- 
ment the  Socratic  answer  of  Thou-fou  to  royal  offers  of 
forgiveness :  "  I  have  fulfilled  my  duty,  and  ought  to  be 
rewarded." 

We  are  not  disposed  to  be  severely  literal  in  our  reading 
of  confessions  by  many  Chinese  singers  of  their  The  "To- 
dependence  on  inspirations  of  a  lower  kind.  As  PerFoets-" 
when  Thou-fou,  himself  comparatively  temperate,  describes 

1  Poesies  des  Thang,  pp.  99,  too. 

s  Biot  (Introd.  to  Tcheou-li)  observes  that  no  servile  office  existed  at  the  court  of  the 
Chinese  emperors. 

8  Chaou-ke  consoled  himself  in  exile  by  writing  Songs  of  A  dversity,  and  commenting  on 
the  books  of  Mencius,  apostle  of  free  speech  to  kings. 


5l8  STRUCTURES. 

the  Round  Table  of  eight  toper  poets  transformed  into 
genii  over  their  cups.  Of  this  jovial  crew  was  Li-thai-pe, 
the  most  admired  poet  of  the  Tang ;  a  linguist  and  courtier 
in  high  honor,  famous  for  literary  feats.  His  modest  re- 
spect for  his  art,  which  prompted  him,  on  seeing  the  poems 
of  another,  to  retire  from  the  field  and  write  no  more,  must 
be  a  pendent  to  his  account  of  potations  which  brought  him 
a  happy  unconsciousness  of  the  good  and  evil  of  life.1 

If  we  may  judge  from  the  specimens  of  his  verse  scat- 
tered through  the  romance  of  the  "  Young  Female  Scholars," 
and  the  selections  in  St.  Denys,  the  wine  was  not,  in  Li-thai- 
pe's  case  at  least,  of  so  highly  stimulating  a  quality  as  to 
make  him  forget  any  recognized  poetic  rules.2  So  little  of 
extravagance  disfigures  the  standard  poetry  of  China,  that 
we  incline  to  ascribe  this  customary  tribute  to  the  wine-god 
to  sentimentalism  rather  than  actual  devotion.  Any  mysti- 
cal meaning  is  excluded  by  the  strong  realism  of  the  poet. 
The  only  frenzy  shown  by  these  favorites  of  the  Muse  is 
for  the  calligraphic  art.  The  swiftness  of  the  pencil 
measures  the  tide  of  inspiration.  Allied  to  this  is  the 
passion  for  handsome  prosody.  The  praises  lavished  on 
petty  verselets  of  feeble  significance  in  the  romances,  as 
scintillations  of  genius,  point  to  some  dexterity  in  matter  of 
rhythm,  too  subtle  for  foreigners  wholly  to  appreciate. 

But  these  defects  in  the  poetic  ideal  must  not  hide  its  pe- 
Association  culiar  charm  of  refined  and  tender  sentiment,  the 
of  Poetry  unmistakable  sign  of  which  is  the  special  associa- 

with  .  * 

woman.  tion  of  poetic  honors  with  woman.  In  the  long  lists 
of  learned  women,  a  great  proportion  are  poets.3  Trib- 
utes to  female  genius  are  a  commonplace  of  the  romances. 
In  the  most  famous  of  this  class,4  the  heroine  puts  down 

1  See  A  Spring  Day,  St.  Denys,  p.  32. 

2  He  inclines  to  dwell  on  the  thought  of  death,  and  observes  a  refined  mechanism  in  struct- 
ure ;  qualities  not  of  a  very  bacchanalian  type. 

3  Williams  I.  453-548.     Wylie, passim. 
*  The  Two  Literary  Maidens. 


POETRY.  519 

all  competitors  in  poetry,  receives  a  jade  sceptre  from  the 
Emperor,  and,  in  conjunction  with  another  maiden  of  like 
gifts,  exercises  a  sway  to  which  all  powers  defer  as  to  a  di- 
vinity. These  two  dictators  confound  all  pretenders,  deal 
out  satire,  master  the  hearts  of  renowned  youths  by  a  su- 
periority before  which  the  laurels  of  the  prize-graduate, 
and  even  of  the  Han-lin,  fade.  A  curious  mixture  of  self- 
depreciation  with  airs  of  inordinate  assumption,  common  to 
poets  in  the  romances,  is  carried  by  the  heroines  unchal- 
lenged to  the  height  of  vain  glory  ;  an  index,  not  only  of 
the  high  esteem  in  which  poetry  itself  was  held,  but  of  the 
recognition  of  a  special  aptitude  in  woman  to  wield  its 
refining  powers,  —  the  entire  title  of  the  sex  to  engage  in 
free  competition  in  this  highest  branch  of  the  highest 
sphere  known  to  the  Chinese  ideal. 

Love-plots  are  apt  to  turn  on  mutual  appreciation  be- 
tween perfect  strangers,  through  strophes  and  anti-  "The  Flow- 
strophes  posted  in  public  places,  usually  in  praise  of  erySo-oiis." 
Nature  or  letters.  We  cannot  say  how  far  these  posted 
challenges  served  the  purpose  of  advertisements  for  lovers  ; 
but  they  plainly  mark  a  decided  willingness  on  Cupid's 
part  to  settle  into  an  humble  waiter  on  the  Muse.  Cer- 
tainly a  democratic  freedom  and  self-confidence  in  the 
aspirant  for  poetic  honors  can  no  further  go.  Thus  an 
ambitious  poetess  only  twelve  years  old  affixes  her  thesis  to 
the  monument  of  a  sage,  to  the  effect  that  if  any  should 
ask  how  she,  a  child,  dared  to  rank  herself  among  the 
great,  she  would  reply  with  Confucius :  "  If  you  rub  the 
jade  you  do  not  wear  it  down ;  if  you  touch  it  with  dirt,  it 
is  not  defiled.  Shun  himself  was  but  a  man.  I  also  am  a 
part  of  humanity,  and  can  resemble  him/' 1  Of  two  poet- 
esses who  led  their  age,  we  are  told  that  "  they  could  not 
open  their  lips  without  dropping  pearls  ;  that  they  spoke 
their  minds  before  kings  without  flinching ;  that  ministers 

1  The  Two  Literary  Maidens^  I.,  220. 


520  STRUCTURES. 

were  humbled  before  them,  and  great  scholars  mortified 
to  learn  to  how  little  purpose  they  had  spent  their  own 
studious  lives."  1 

Here  is  the  poem  that  wins  for  young  Chan-tai  —  "grave 
A  prize  °f  air>  white-robed,  without  ornament,  and  serene  " 
Poem.  —  honors  that  are  not  lavished  on  the  statesman  or 
the  sage  :  — 

* 

THE  WHITE  SWALLOW. 

"  When  the  sun  sets,  white  hearts  are  few  :  From  the  strife  I  flee  to  the 

blossoms  of  the  pear. 
I  depart  pale,  but  should  blush  to  take  the  raven's  hue  :  I  return  thin, 

but  only  the  snow  shall  fill  out  my  shape. 
Coming  back  through  the  night,  my  shadow  can  be  seen.     Bearing 

away  all  the  purple  of  the  spring,  my  robes  should  still  want  no 

bleaching. 
How  many  bright-colored  doves  go  astray  !     Amidst  all  the  jealousies, 

I  alone  return  pure  and  unstained." 

That  this  dainty  bit  of  natural  painting  should  be  chosen 
for  such  honor,  and  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  girl,  intimates 
that  tastes  as  refined  as  the  handwork  that  nursed  silk- 
worms, or  drew  the  fine  patterns  of  flower  and  leaf  on 
bamboo  tablets,  presided  over  literary  aesthetics  in  this 
highly  developed  civilization. 

The  sympathy  of  Nature  with  human  suffering  is  ex- 

s  m  athies  P1"68560*  in  a  graceful   little  song,  relating   how  a 

with  Na-     mother,  condemned  to  die,  is  saved  by  a  miracle  in 

delicate  accord  with  her  sorrow :  midsummer  heat 

turned  to  winter  snow.2 

"Judge,  guards,  and  headsman  stand  aghast ;    while  every  head  in 

reverence  is  bent 
Before  the  girl ;  the  snow-flakes  falling  fast,  mutely  proclaim  that  she 

is  innocent." 

1  The  Two  Literary  Maidens,  I.    243,  244.  *  Jade  Chaflet,  by  Stent,  p.  115. 


POETRY.  521 

So  the  plaintive  strains  of  the  flute  by  night,  like  "Annie 
Laurie"  in  the  Crimean  camp,  steal  away  the  sol-  Music  and 
dier's  heart,  and  a  homesick  army  leaves  the  field  H°me~ 

*  sickness. 

on  the  eve  of  battle.1 


"  They  must  return :  ere  day  broke,  the  foe  sought  them,  and  they 

were  gone. 

The  magic,  the  witchery  of  music,  indescribable  by  tongue  or  pen  ! 
The  flute  of  Chang-liang,  in  that  little  space,  had  stolen  the  courage 

of  eight  thousand  men." 

Best  evidence  of  poetic  capacity  is  a  constant  investment 
of  Nature  with  human  expression. 

"  O  the  pleasant  little  rain,  that  knows  so  well  when  it  is  wanted, 
Coming  just  in  spring,  to  help  the  new  life  forward  ! 
It  has  chosen  the  nighttime  to  come  softly  with  favoring  breeze; 
Subtly  and  noiselessly,  it  has  softened  all  things."2 

"  This  year's  flowers  succeed  the  last,  and  not  less  fair  : 

But  last  year's  men  are  older  by  a  year. 

Thus  men  grow  old,  and  flowers  die. 

Pity  the  fallen  flowers  :  sweep  them  not  away."8 

"  Brave  yellow,  passing  into  tender  green,  The  Willow 

The  glory  of  the  spring-tide's  early  day  ;  Blossoms. 

By  eaves'  side  quivering,  or  in  the  sheen 

Of  lake  reflected  ;  every  tender  spray 
Dancing  upon  the  wind,  by  silken  thread  suspended, 

Or  sighing  for  the  mellow  eve  and  moonlit  play  ; — 
O  sweet  and  fair,  too  young  as  yet  to  bear 

Plucking  for  love's  last  gift,  with  farewell  ended. 

O  wilding  flowers,  ye  steal  my  heart  away. 
The  Eastern  King,  should  he  your  beauties  know, 
Will  look  with  kindly  eyes  ;  nor  rain,  nor  snow 

Will  send,  nor  any  thing 

To  mar  the  crescent  spring, 
And  breezes  that  your  lengthening  tassels  sway."  4 

1  Jade  Chaplet  p.  117.  2  Thou-fou (from  the  French  of  St.  Denys). 

3  Wang-tchang-ling  (St.  Denys).  *  Translated  by  Lister,  in  China  Review. 


522  STRUCTURES. 

"  Yonder  falls  a  precipitous  cascade  three  thousand  feet. 
The          Here  the  mountain  touches  the  sky,  and  divides  the  orbs. 
Mountain  Drifting  snows  fly  amidst  the  thunder, 
outlook,     j  am  like  a  wnite  bird  amidst  the  clouds  : 

I  insult  the  winds  and  invade  the  deep  abyss. 

As  I  turn  and  look  down  on  each  neighboring  province, 

The  evening  smoke  ascends  from  the  dwellings  in  blue  specks."  * 

"  See  the  five  peaks  of  yon  mountain,  joined  like  fingers  of  a  hand, 

The  Moun-  Rising  from  the  south  as  a  wall  midway  to  heaven ! 

tain  Height  By  night  it  would  pluck  from  the  concave  the  stars  of  the 

Milky  Way: 

By  day  it  explores  the  zenith  and  plays  with  the  clouds. 
The  rain  has  ceased ;  the  summits  shine  in  the  void  expanse. 
The  moon  is  up :  it  is  like  a  broad  pearl  over  the  expanded  palm. 
One  might  imagine  the  Great  Spirit  had  stretched  forth  an  arm 
From  afar,  beyond  the  sea,  and  was  numbering  the  nations."3 

"  The  mountains  disdain  the  passions  of  earth  :  glory  troubles  not 
their  peace."3 

(i.)  "  The  sun  has  crossed  the  high  mountain  chain  to  set  behind  them  ; 

Woodland    Soon  all  the  valley  will  be  lost  in  the  shades  of  eve  ; 

Home.        The  moon  rises  out  of  the  pines,  bringing  coolness  with  her ; 

The  rustling  wind,  and  the  flowing  brooks  fill  my  ear  with  pure 

sounds." 
(2.)  "  The  wood-cutter  regains  his  hut,  to  repair  his  wasted  strength  ; 

The  bird  has  chosen  his  bough,  perched  in  motionless  rest. 

A  friend  has  promised  to  come  and  enjoy  this  lovely  night: 

I  take  my  lute  and  await  him  alone  in  the  grassy  paths."  4 

"  Men  pass  their  lives  apart :  like  stars  that  move,  but  never  meet. 
A  friend  •     This  eve,  how  blest  it  is  that  the  same  lamp  gives  light  to 

re-visited.  both  of  US  ! 

Brief  is  youth's  day.     Our  temples  already  tell  of  waning  life. 
Already  half  of  those  we  knew  are  spirits  :  I  am  moved  in  the  depth 

of  my  soul ! 
Could  I  have  thought  that  after  twenty  years  I  should  be  again  in  your 

home? 

1  Davis  (Sketches,  p.  20).  *  Davis,  in  Journal R.  A.  S.,  1830. 

8  Wang-tchang-ling  (St.  Denys).  *  Mong-kao-jen  (St.  Denys). 


POETRY.  523 

To-morrow,  mountains  with  cloudy  peaks  must  sever  us  again, 
And  for  us  two  the  future  be  again  a  sea  without  a  bound."1 

"  I  know  not  how  many  generations  the  moon  has  shone  upon. 

But  I  know  these  waves  of  the  Kiang  flow  on,  never  to  xhe  long- 
return,  ings  of  the 

As  I  sail,  none  knows  me  ;  nor  if  the  moon  is  shining  on  a  seP3™^ 
far-off  home  where  they  think  of  me. 

Sadly  the  wife  too  thinks  of  her  husband  :  their  thoughts  seek  each 
other,  though  far  apart. 

Night  comes :  she  dreams  of  fallen  flowers.  *  Alas  !  spring  half  gone, 
he  comes  not  yet.' 

The  river  flows,  the  spring  ebbs  away :  the  moon  sinks  into  the 
waters, 

Into  the  horizon  mists  :  the  setting  moon  sends  pangs  to  her  heart."  * 

Li-thai-pe  and  Thou-fou  alike  pour  out  their  sympathy  for 
the  poor  conscripts  on  their  distant  campaign.     The 
latter,  in  almost  Homeric  strain,  describes  the  de- 
parture of  the  troops,  -the  women  clinging  to  their  Thou-fou. 
garments,    the  questions  of  bystanders  receiving   but  one 
reply  :  "  It  is  our  fate  to  be  marching  for  ever  from  boyhood 
to  old  age." 

"  Then  the  village  chief  bound  their  young  brows  with  gauze  ;    The  con- 
Now  they  return  with  whitened  hair,  only  to  set  out  again,    scripts. 
Insatiable  in  his   plans  of  conquest,   the  Emperor  hears   not  his 

people's  cry. 

In  vain  brave  women  have  seized  the  axe  and  held  the  plough  ; 
Thorns  and  briars  cover  the  desolate  soil. 

Ever  war  rages,  regardless  of  human  life  as  of  the  dog's  or  fowl's. 
'  Have  we  not  come,'  say  they,  '  to  take  the  birth  of  a  son  for  a 

disaster  ? 

O  Prince,  you  have  not  seen  the  borders  of  the  Blue  Sea, 
Where  the  dead  bones  are  whitening  and  never  gathered  up ; 
Where  the  spirits  of  the  lately  slain  importune  the  long  perished  : 
Dark  the  sky,  cold  the  rain,  in  that  drear  clime,  where  groans  for- 
ever rise. '  "  8 

1  Thou-fou  (St.  Denys).  *  Tchang-jo-han  (St.  Denys). 

8  Thou-fou  (St.  Denys). 


524  STRUCTURES. 

A  favorite  theme  is  the  praise  of  solitude,  the  com- 
Praiseof  panionship  of  Nature  for  the  exile,  the  ascetic,  or 
solitude,  the  renouncer  of  cities  :  — 

"  I  return  to  the  hills  to  seek  my  rest. 
You  will  not  need  to  ask  me  of  new  wanderings  any  more. 
Nature  does  not  change  ;  the  white  clouds  for  ever  last."  J 

"  The  mountain  is  lone ;  why  stay  you  in  this  desert  ? 
Deep  thoughts  are  hard  to  reach,  and  I  walk  alone. 
I  love  the  pure  springs  that  wind  among  the  rocks; 
I  love  my  rustic  cabin  in  its  peace  among  the  pines."  2 

"  Approaching  the  holy  hermitage,  I  was  kindly  met    by  the   aged 

saint. 
I  entered  into  the  principles  of  reason,  breaking  the  ties  of  earthly 

desire. 
United  in  one  thought,  all  words   being  exhausted,  we  fell  into 

silence. 
I  saw  the  flowers  as  still  as  we,  heard  the  hovering  birds,  and  knew 

the  truth  of  truths."  8 

"  Have  I  not  reached  the  purity  of  the  wise  ?     Like  flame  borne  by 

wind, 

My  spirit  will  be  detached   from    this  inert  body,  and  return  no 
more."  4 

The  poetry  of  the  T'ang  abounds  in  a  vague,  melancholy 
Transient-  brooding  over  the  transientness  of  things,  and 
ness  of  life  memories  of  the  lost :  — 

"  The   flower  fades  and    is  swept  away,  but   whither  goes   its    per- 
fume ? " 5 
"For  friends    I  had  immortal  men;  in  the  glad  eves  we  sailed  the 

lake. 

My  happy  pen  already  drew  the  imperial  eye. 
To-day  my  songs  are  sad  ;  my  bleached  head  is  bent  with  woe."  8 

1  Wang-wei.  2  Ibid.  8  Song-tchi-ouen. 

4  Pe-lo-ye.  6  Tchin-tseu-gran. 

6  Thou-fou's  Autumn  Ode  (St.  Denys) ;  see  the  whole  ode.  Also  Laprade,  Le  Sentiment 
de  la  Nature  avant  le  Christianisme. 


POETRY.  525 

The  following  is  Horatian  :  — 

"  Every  day,  alas,  brings  on  the  inevitable  old  age,         "  Carp* 
While  every  year  sees  happy  spring  return.  Diem." 

Let  us  enjoy  ourselves  while  our  cup  is  full ; 
If  the  flowers  fade,  let  us  try,  O  Friend,  to  ignore."1 

The  Chinese,  like  the  Hebrews,  have  their  typical  elegy 
on  the  vanity  of  life,  the  Li-sao,2  —  a  strange,  sad 

J  .  The  Li-sao. 

poem,  made  up  of  faith  in  duty  and  unbelief  in 
men,  which  marks  the  dismal  epoch  of  the  T'sin  conquests, 
but  outlived  its  fires,  and  has  been  in  highest  honor  ever 
since,  as  the  keynote  of  a  favorite  national  mood.  Its 
allegory  takes  the  flowers  for  symbols  of  virtues  and  emo- 
tions, of  experiences  that  the  poet  gathers  up,  or  fates  by 
which  he  is  drawn.  In  disgrace  for  loyalty  to  the  old  paths 
of  right,  he  explores  all  spaces  and  elements,  the  homes  of 
gods  and  men,  philosophy  and  magic,  —  vainly  searching 
for  sympathy,  a  good  wife,  a  good  prince,  sustained  only  by 
the  perfumes  of  the  flowers  at  his  girdle.  Alas !  the  ideal 
is  not  found  :  — 

"What  is  the  sum  of  art  and  talent  in  this  age  of  ours  ? 

To  turn  the  back  on  square  and  compass,  to  follow  crooked  ways 

as  freedom  ; 

To  lay  plots  with  evil  means,  and  make  them  serve  for  laws. 
'Tis  all  in  vain :  there  is  not  one  who  knows  me." 

On  the  luminous  summits  his  heart  gives  out  ;  he  will  go 
no  further.  Filled  with  the  thought  of  his  native  land,  he 
"  goes  to  rejoin  Pang-kien,"  — in  death. 

The  civil  wars  following  on  the  close  of  the  Han  brought 
out  a  spirit  of  knight-errantry,  fruitful  in  Oriental   Love  and 
minnc-singing*  with  such  refrains  as  this  :  — 

"  A  fair  figure  captivates  men's  desires, 
But  the  real  perfume  of  a  woman  is  modesty." 

1  Wang-wei.  *  Kiu-youen. 

8  Described  in  D'Hervey  St.  Denys's  charming  volume  on  the  Tang. 


526  STRUCTURES. 

"  There  is  one  of  whom  I  think,  a  hundred  mountain  leagues  away ; 
But  the  same  moon,  the  same  passing  wind,  is  for  both  :  I  muse  on 
our  happy  times." 

Less  suited  to  the  sentimental  Chinese  muse  would  seem 
to  be  the  vigorous  war-songs,  of  which  the  T'ang  has  many 
specimens :  — 

"  Behold  the  times  return  in  which  the  chief  of  a  band  of  a  hundred 
Is  in  higher  honor  than  a  scholar  of  rank  and  talent."  l 

"  At  ten  paces  he  has  killed  his  man.     A  hundred  leagues  will  not 

stop  him. 
He  has  done  it ;  he  shakes  out  his  robes,  and  is  gone.     He  leaves 

no  sign. of  name  or  track. 
A  hero's  bones  have  the  fragrance  of  fame.     Shall  not  the  cheeks 

of  the  mere  scholar  blush  ? 
Who  could  win  such  name  with  bent  head  and  whitening  hairs  over 

books?"2 

Two  companion  ballads  celebrate  womanly  sacrifice  and 
Awoman's  manly  devotion  with  great  simplicity  and  force.  In 
devotion.  the  first)  a  queen  saves  the  infant  child  of  her  slain 
husband  by  another  wife,  and  at  the  sacrifice  of  her  own 
life  on  the  battle-field,  where  she  is  left  wounded  and 
alone  :  — 

"  The  trembling  Queen  sat  up  ;  — 

She  saw  the  cold  mist  settling  down,  the  beaten,  withered  grass  : 
Caressing  the  Prince  in  her  bosom,  she  saw  he  was  silent  and  still ; 
Her  color  fled,  and  she  gazed  intently  upon  him  ;  — the  little  Atou  had 

cried  himself  to  sleep. 

Turning  her  face  to  the  little  one,  she  cried,  '  Awake  ! ' 
She  saw  the  tiny  hand  unclose,  the  eyes  slowly  open  wide  ; 
His  little  face  he  in  her  bosom  thrusts,  and  tumbles  it  in  search  of 

nutriment. 
She  could  but  sigh,  '  O  bitter  fate  !  the  babe  is  famishing,  nor  know  I 

whither  your  mother  wanders.' 
The  little  Atou,  patient  and  good,  never  moaned  .  .  . 

1  Yang-kiong  (St.  Denys).  J  Li-thai-pe. 


POETRY.  527 

The  mists  disappeared,  the  sky  grew  bright.  Looking  over  the  deso- 
late battle-field, 

She  sighed :  '  His  father  has  wandered  half  his  life,  and  borne  this 
child  alone  : 

If  I  would  prove  my  faithfulness  to  him  (by  rejoining  him  in  death) 
this  child  will  die. 

But  when  I  reach  the  "  Yellow  Springs,"  how  could  I  face  the  ances- 
tors of  Lui's  house  ?  ' ' 

So  she  struggles  on,  "  racked  with  her  own  deep  wound," 
rescued  at  last  by  a  hero,  who  fights  his  way  through  the 
enemy,  bearing  the  two  on  his  horse.  To  him  committing 
the  child,  she  anticipates  her  approaching  death,  and 
hastens  away  to  heaven.  The  poet  adds :  — 

"  The  composition  of  my  leisure  hours  has  made  me  weep.      The 

entrusted  orphan's  fate 

IVe  writ,  that,  ages  hence,  men  should  blush  for  themselves,  and 
emulate  a  woman." 

The  second  ballad  describes  the  gallop  of  the  hero  with 
the  child  on  his  bosom  to  its  mother :  — 

"  What  a  glad  shout  did  the  brave  herb  greet,  as  he  sprang  from  his 

horse  and  fell  at  her  feet !  A  man's. 

And  cried,  as  exhausted  he  sank  on   the  ground,  '  Thy 
dead  son  is  living  ;  he  was  lost,  and  is  found."  1 

We  must  seek  the  religious  element  in  Chinese  poetry 
in  the  seriousness  of  its  interest  in  positive  forms  „ 

The  re- 

of  life  and  conduct,  rather  than  in  contemplation  ligious 
of  Infinite  Being.     There  is  indeed  no  lack  of  the  element> 
fanciful  anthropomorphism,   which  in   every  popular  faith 
has  peopled  the  world  with  genii,  local  and  general,  though 
the  images  are  so  vague  and  unstable  as  hardly  to  consti- 
tute a  positive  creed.     The  combination  of  Buddhism  with 
the  lower  forms  of  Tao-sse  spiritism  brought  fresh  acces- 

1  Translated  by  Stent,  Jade  Chalet,  p.  22. 


528  STRUCTURES. 

sions  of  the  supernatural  in  times  later  than  Confucius  ; 
while  of  this  there  is  in  the  older  poetry,  and  especially  in 
the  Shi-king,  scarcely  a  trace.  Magical  lore  and  the  Pro- 
tean dance  of  transmigration  found  full  scope  in  the  fer- 
ment of  the  national  mind  during  the  Han.  A  "  storm 
and  stress "  school  grew  up  at  this  period,  ambitious  of 
fantastic  and  bizarre  situations,  hinted  in  obscure  phrases 
like  that  social  twilight  which  it  described.  The  Chinese 
themselves  call  it  the  Kouai  (sensational)  style.1  But  this 
was  transitory,  and  the  later  poetry  of  the  Tang  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  as  sceptical  and  rational  as  the  later  Roman, 
or  the  modern  English,  muse.  Through  all  intrusions  of 
asceticism,  magic,  and  alchemical  dreaming,  the  old  simple 
rites  to  Shang-te  and  the  ancestors  celebrated  in  the  Shi, 
and  consecrating  the  labors  and  joys  of  real  life,  stood  fast, 
—  a  poetry  too  deeply  in  unison  with  the  organic  life  of 
the  race  to  yield  to  objective  changes  of  literary  taste  and 
construction. 

To  this  venerable  record,  the  sum  of  the  poetic  ideal 
for  near  three  thousand  years,  let  us  now  address  our- 
selves. 


The  prosaic  Chinese,  as  well  as  the  imaginative  Hindus, 
THE  SHI-  venerate  a  collection  of  lyrics  as  the  most  precious 
KING.  treasure  of  their  past.  The  three  hundred  and 
eleven  Odes  of  the  Shi  cover  the  whole  period,  more  or  less 
Probable  than  a  thousand  years,  during  which  the  old  States 
oft^  were  formed  and  feudally  related,  down  to  the 
odes.  eighth  century,  B.C.  The  latest  of  them  are  thus 
beyond  question  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  centuries  old. 
Confucius,  it  is  believed,  selected  them  out  of  three  thou- 
sand as  best  suited  for  moral  and  political  influence.  But 
it  is  the  reasonable  conclusion  of  modern  scholars  that 

1  St.  Denys,  pp.  25,  26. 


THE    SHI-KING.  $2$ 

a  Shi-king  substantially  similar  to  the  present  was  in  use 
and  honor  before  his  day.1  The  Odes  are  not  only  evident 
products  of  special  occasions,  but  indicate  direct  relations 
with  old  customs  and  institutions.  They  have  followed 
the  living  movement  of  these  as  the  recognized  supply 
of  blended  music  and  song  at  marriage  feasts,  agricultural 
jubilees,  court  receptions,  feudal  assemblies,  family  re- 
unions, religious  rites  and  services  to  ancestors,  to  great 
men,  to  the  gods  and  spirits  of  the  national  faith.  It  is  to 
be  noticed  further,  that  a  considerable  period  of  veneration 
for  the  book,  as  a  whole,  must  have  elapsed  before  the 
public  and  political  headings  that  have  been  attached  to 
the  simplest  effusions  of  private  feeling  in  the  earlier  odes 
would  have  been  possible  even  in  China,  being  the  product 
of  their  final  symbolization  in  the  interest  qf  the  State.  Yet 
these  superscriptions,  analogous  to  those  which  Christian 
commentators  have  given  to  the  old  Hebrew  Psalms,  be- 
long to  the  oldest  text  of  the  Shi  now  extant,  and  date 
from  a  period  at  least  as  early  as  the  Christian  era.2 

Whatever  antiquity  is  thus  made  probable  for  the  Shi- 
king  as  a  whole,  the  collection  must  have  been  of  slow 
growth.  It  must  have  required  a  long  time  to  gather  from 
so  many  of  the  old  feudal  States  these  voices  of  all  impor- 
tant epochs  of  the  protracted  history  of  the  Tcheou.  The 
hoard  would  naturally  increase  with  more  or  less  rapidity, 
according  to  the  fortunes  of  that  imperfect  imperialism,  of 
whose  centralizing  power  it  was  the  fruit  and  the  guaran- 
tee. But  the  dates  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  The  dates 
Odes  are  still  undetermined  by  the  free  criticism  unse«ied. 

1  Confucius  speaks  of  the  "  Book  of  Poetry"  as  already  familiar,  and  with  an  apparently 
traditional  admiration  for  the  work  so  designated.  The  present  classification  of  the  Odes  is 
mentioned  in  a  book  believed  to  have  preceded  the  Confucian  edition  (Plath,  Leb.  d.  Confuc. 
II.,  p.  63).  Many  of  them  are  cited  by  writers  of  his  day,  in  different  forms  indeed,  and  under 
different  titles  from  the  present  (Ibid).  He  is  asserted  to  have  made  changes  according  to 
his  judgment.  What  he  himself  claims  is  to  have  re-arranged  the  principal  odes  and  reformed 
the  music  (Lunyu,  IX.  14).  See  also  Legge's  Prolegomena. 

s  Legge  on  text  of  Maou,  pp.  10,  33. 

34 


530  STRUCTURES. 

of  two  thousand  years  ;  and  though  the  best  are  as- 
cribed to  the  Great  Duke,  who  is  the  traditional  Solo- 
mon and  Moses  of  the  Tcheou,  the  real  authorship  of 
by  far  the  greater  portion  is  as  inscrutable  as  are  their 
dates.1 

But  the  different  forms  in  which  they  are  quoted  indi- 
Assodated  cate  the  absence  of  critical  labor  in  their  earliest 
with  music,  compilation.  This  appears  to  have  been  of  a  mu- 
sical quite  as  much  as  of  a  literary  character.  Their  words 
are  supposed  to  have  been  twin-born  with  melodies  of  their 
respective  countries  and  times.  Many  are  such  simple 
refrains  as  could  only  have  sprung  from  the  impulse  to 
adapt  words  to  a  favorite  air.  Others  are  evidently  meant 
to  give  body  and  positive  associations  to  specific  national 
styles  of  music.  ,  Confucius  claims  to  have  restored  some 
of  these  styles,2  and  the  commentators  attach  great  im- 
portance to  them  as  true  expressions  of  the  moral  con- 
ditions under  which  they  were  formed  :  thus  fitted  to  teach 
right  government  and  the  regulation  of  the  passions,  or  to 
produce  the  opposite  effect.3  The  simplicity  of  this  old 
music  is  seen  in  the  regular  metrical  structure  of  the 
lines,  the  syllables  of  which  are  generally  equal  in  num- 
ber. The  rhyme  rings  changes  on  a  few  endings,  accord- 

1  The  differing  judgments  of  our  own  sinologists  hardly  enable  us  to  judge  as  to  dates, 
which  the  greatest  of  native  critics,  Chu-hi  himself,  was  obliged  to  pronounce  indeterminable 
by  any  other  evidence  than  the  meagre  and  obscure  allusions  in  the  Odes  themselves.  Dr. 
Legge's  views  are  intermediate  between  those  of  Plath,  Edkins,  and  other  advocates  of  high, 
antiquity  for  all  Chinese  wisdom,  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  of  Chalmers,  Mayers,  and  Eitel, 
who  find  nothing  positive  previous  to  the  eighth  century,  B.C.,  on  the  other.  The  latter  is  indeed 
a  striking  historic  starting-point,  being  that  of  the  earliest  data  of  positive  Hebrew  history,  and 
of  the  first  Olympiads,  which  hold  the  same  position  in  the  Greek.  But  the  difficulties  are 
obvious.  The  question  of  uniformity  in  the  language  of  the  Odes  must  be  left  to  experts  ;  but 
the  two  centuries  which  elapsed  between  the  eighth  century  and  the  time  of  Confucius  are 
hardly  sufficient  for  the  growth  of  such  a  collection,  or  of  such  a  reputation  as  the  latter  epoch 
awarded  it.  Mr.  Faber  (Qnellen  zu  Confuc. )  thinks  there  will  be  space  enough  if  we  begin 
the  Odes  at  noo  B.C.  The  very  great  antiquity  of  ideo-graphic  literature  in  Egypt  lessens  our 
doubts  of  a  similar  phenomenon  in  China.  That  we  must  be  content  to  wait  in  these  matters 
is  no  drawback  to  the  interest  of  the  Odes  for  those  laws  of  religious  universality  with  which 
the  present  work  is  mainly  concerned. 

*  Lunyu,\\\.  26,  XV.  10. 

8  See  the  Two  Prefaces  to  the  Shi;  also  Mencius,  I.  PT.  n.  i.  ;  Lunyu,  VII.  13. 


THE    SHI-KING.  531 

ing  to  some   authorities  not   more    than    twenty  or  even 
ten !     But  this   cannot  be  determined,  since  many  of  the 
rhymes  are  irrecoverably  lost ;  though  the  charac-  The  lost 
ters  still  convey  the  meaning,  so  far  as  this  is  dis-  rhymes- 
coverable   (by  much    "chiselling")   through  the  obscurity 
caused  by  the  use  of  different  characters  to  express  the 
same  sounds.1 

All  that  Chinese  faith  expects  from  the  use  of  the  Shi- 
king  is  the  ethical  and  spiritual  effect  which  would  Oniynatu- 
naturally  result  from  their  combined  music  and  ral 
meaning.  The  Veda-worshipper  ascribes  super- 
natural  influences  to  the  mere  repetition  of  its  Odes- 
hymns,  and  even  to  the  breathing  their  most  sacred  texts 
without  sound.  But  the  virtues  of  the  Shi  are  soberly 
practical.  Its  themes  are  the  common  objects  of  sight  and 
sound,  the  common  experiences  of  life,  —  labors  of  hus- 
bandry, duties  of  government,  laws  of  social  order,  rever- 
ence of  men  for  goodness,  gratitude  for  public  service, 
indignation  at  oppressive  rule.  And  the  music  by  which 
these  themes  are  brought  home  to  the  emotional  nature 
is  an  instrument  as  natural  as  themselves.  However 
profound  the  function  of  verse  as  an  element  in  the  order 
of  the  world,  so  great  as  to  move  heaven  and  earth, 
spirits  as  well  as  men  ;2  and  though  Chu-hi  affirms  that 
poetic  inspiration  reaches  to  the  secret  springs  of  human 
conduct,  thus  becoming  prophetic,3  —  these  powers  of  song 
are  referred  to  natural  grounds,  in  accordance  with  the 
ethical  and  positive  spheres  in  which  they  move.  The 
Odes  are  provided  by  the  ancient  kings  as  examples  by 
which  men  may  be  educated  to  virtue.4  Though  many  of 
them  are  perfectly  spontaneous  expressions  of  moods,  de- 
sires, or  passions  that  might  tempt  to  supernatural  appeals, 

1  See  Legge,  Prolegomena,  p.  12,  who  ascribes  this  confusion  to  the  recovery  of 
the  Odes  through  oral  repetition,  from  the  memory  of  numerous  persons,  after  the  fires 
of  T'sin. 

*  The  Great  Preface.  »  Ibid.,  Commentary.  «  Ibid 


532  STRUCTURES. 

they  scarcely  ever1  break  through  the  familiar  limits  of 
human  experience.  Where  else  in  analogous  forms  of 
contrasted  literature  shall  we  find  such  sobriety  and  construc- 
wdcntther  ^ve  rea^sm  -?  No  mystic  personification  and  won- 
hymns.  dering  awe  of  the  elements  reminds  us  of  the  Rig 
Veda  ;  no  ethic  allegory,  no  cosmic  mythology  of  the  forces 
of  Life  and  Death,  of  Strife  and  Peace,  suggests  the  Edda ; 
no  wonder-working  God,  lifting  rewards  and  penalties  out 
of  the  sphere  of  natural  law  into  that  of  overruling  will 
and  positive  command,  the  Pentateuch  and  Psalms.  In 
place  of  these  child-like  ardors  of  imagination  is  a  serious 
and  mature  acceptance  of  the  order  of  the  world  and  of  the 
familiar  uses  of  life,  as  matters  both  of  fact  and  of  oppor- 
tunity. In  place  of  aspiration  to  speculative  or  miraculous 
gifts,  to  loss  of  self  in  the  unseen,  an  absorbing  construc- 
tiveness  in  the  paths  of  social  order.  No  restless  effort  to 
break  away  from  human  conditions  into  new  heavens  and 
earth  in  accordance  with  intense  desires,  but  firmest  faith 
in  the  unchanging  ways  of  a  Providence,  revealed  only  in 
the  blessings  that  must  follow  virtue  and  the  penalties  that 
must  punish  vice. 

The  oldest  monuments  of  Egyptian  thought  are  marked 
Affinities  by  similar  traits.  Not  till  the  eighteenth  dynasty 
E  dan  (eighteen  centuries  B.C.  )  does  religion  enter  the 
records.  Nile  sepulchres  in  any  other  form  than  a  simple 
invocation,  generally  to  Anubis  as  guardian  of  the  dead.2 
But  we  have,  in  pictures,  the  same  civil  and  social  detail, 
labor  and  marriage  scenes,  hunting  and  fishing  habits ;  the 
same  interest  in  animals  and  plants,  and  the  same  patri- 
archal life  which  the  Shi-king  gives  us  in  verse.  The  fact 
is  of  interest  that  the  oldest  hieroglyphic  papyrus  known  is 
a  moral  treatise"  by  a  high  official,3  the  most  striking  feature 

1  An  exception  occurs  in  the  legend  of  the  birth  of  How-tseih,  the  father  of  agriculture. 

2  Mariette  Bey's  Hist.  Egypt;  also  Carre's  Anc.  Orient.  I.  100. 

3  Pthah-Hotep ;  his  work  is  dated  by  scholars  in  the  earliest  ages  of  the  monarchy,  from 
three  thousand  to  four  thousand  years  B.C.  ;  see  Carre,  I.  98.     It  is  fully  described  by  Brugsch, 
Hist.  <T  Egypte,  p.  29-31. 


THE    SHI-KING.  533 

of  which  is  its  simple  didactics  of  filial  piety  in  a  thor- 
oughly Chinese  spirit. 

The  Hebrews  are  not  without  similar  literary  elements. 
Judging  from  the  extracts  contained  in  the  Penta-  With  the 
teuch,  the  Book  of  Jasher  must  have  corresponded   Hebrew 
in  some  respects  to  the  Shi,  but  it  has  disappeared. 
The  lyrics  of  the   epoch  of  Judges,  carefully  analyzed  by 
Fiirst,1  are  found  to  have  been  constructed  like  the  Chinese 
odes  with  much  prosodic  art ;  and  deal,  like  them,  in  praise 
of  heroes,  in  national  reminiscences,  and  in  the  details  of 
popular  life. 

Besides  teaching  how  to  regulate  the  passions  and  fulfil 
the  social  relations,  the  Shi-king  had  its  intellec-  intellec- 
tual  function.      "  My   children,"    says    Confucius,  J^""0" 
"  why  do  you  not  study  the  Odes  ?     They  serve  *e  sw. 
to  stimulate  the  mind  to  self-study.     He  who  is  ignorant 
of  them  is  like  one  who  stands  with  his  face  to  the  wall."  2 
Their  meaning  he  sums   up  in  this  :  "  Have  no  depraved 
thoughts."3     He  even  tells  his  son  that,  if  he  did  not  learn 
them,  he  would  not  be  fit  to  converse  with.4     "  By  the  Shi- 
king  the  mind  is  aroused  ;  by  the  Li-ki,  character  is  organ- 
ized ;  by  music,  the  whole  is  perfected."  5 

Singularly  enough,  Confucius  seldom  quotes  it ;  not 
more  than  eight  times  in  all.  But  his  pupils,  who  Expansions 
edited  the  Chung-yung  and  Ta-hio,  continually  j^1*™™" 
refer  to  its  texts.  Mencius  quotes  it  thirty  times,  later  sages, 
always  to  fine  moral  or  spiritual  purpose ;  showing  the  cus- 
tom of  giving  large  human  meaning  to  the  most  private 
passages  of  this  Book  of  Good  Counsel.6  Thus  the  praise 
of  a  ploughman,  for  refusing  "  to  eat  the  bread  of  idleness," 
is  grandly  expanded  to  answer  a  caviller  against  superior 
men  as  useless  consumers,  with  the  argument  that  the 
noblest  example  of  such  refusal  to  be  fed  without  return  is 

1  Gesch.  d.  Bibl.  Lit.  II.  98. 

8  Lunyu,  VIII.  8;  XVII.  9.  •  Ibid.,  II.  2.  *  Ibid.,  XVI.  13. 

8  Ibid.,  VIII.  8.  «  See  for  examples,  Menc.  II.,  PT.  i.  3  ;  IV.,  PT.  i.  7. 


534  STRUCTURES. 

found  in  those  who  help  the  rulers  and  the  youth  of  a  land 
to  wisdom  and  virtue.1  Even  the  praise  of  a  host  for  hos- 
pitality means  that  the  guests  were  filled  with  righteous- 
ness.2 The  soliloquy  of  an  owl  who  rejoices  in  the  building 
of  her  house  stirs  Confucius  to  ask,  "Did  not  he  who 
made  this  Ode  understand  the  way  to  govern  States  ? "  3 
Mencius  finely  greets  his  master's  interpretation  of  the 
passage  that  Heaven  has  annexed  to  every  faculty  and 
relation  its  own  law,  as  proving  his  deep  acquaintance  with 
the  constitution  of  our  nature.4 

The  philosopher  T'sang,  in  his  Comments  on  the  Ta-hio, 
employs  the  Shi  in  every  paragraph  to  enforce  the  idea  of 
that  little  treatise,  that  all  social  and  political  good  flows 
from  personal  virtue  alone. 

The  Shi-king  is  incapable  of  serving  any  purpose  of 
Absence  of  ecclesiastical  or  mental  despotism.  It  knows  no 
mythology,  priesthood,  ritual,  nor  caste.  Note  in 
proof  of  this  the  freedom  of  criticism  to  which  it 
has  always  been  subject.  Dr.  Legge's  long  list  of 
cism.  authorities  on  the  text  "  indicate  a  great  range  of 
diverse  judgment  and  critical  independence."  Chu-hi,  the 
chief  of  them  all,  did  not  hesitate  to  make  his  own  reason 
and  judgment  the  final  test  of  textual  value.  Nowhere,  in 
the  whole  immense  line  of  critics,  is  there  one  pretence 
of  supernatural  authority  or  absolutist  commission  to 
interpret  this  classic  for  the  common  mind. 

Its  historical  value  must  be  of  the  highest  order.  No 
its  realistic  primitive  people  have  left  so  plain  and  full  a  record 
the°dd°f  °^  tneir  common  life  in  literary  form.  The  earth- 
chinese.  lined  wooden  frames  of  their  houses,  the  bamboo- 
posts,  the  pine  and  cypress  timbers  of  their  ancestral  halls, 
the  sheep  and  oxen  of  the  wealthy  farmers,  the  idyllic 
peasant-labors  with  plough  and  reaping-hook  and  manifold 

1  Ibid.  VII.,  PT.  i.  32.  8  Ibid.  VI.,  PT.  i.  17. 

3  Ibid.  II.,  PT.  i.  4.  «  Menc.  VI.,  PT.  i.  6. 


Y  /  / 

c    '>,  4 

^     v. 


THE    SHI-KING. 


seeds  and  grains,  the  clearing  of  the  wilds  by  their 
chiefs,  their  love  of  their  followers  and  its  full  return,  the 
public  granaries,  the  love  of  home  and  family  and  friends, 
the  pains  of  distant  service,  the  toils  of  officials,  the  feasts 
and  rites,  —  all  stand  out  in  clear  detail  in  the  far  perspective 
of  three  thousand  years.  'Tis  the  photograph  of  concrete 
mind,  the  minute  art  of  oldest  realism.  No  Homeric  wars 
absorb  the  hearts  of  these  social  builders :  there  is  honor 
for  heroes  ;  but  ardor  for  conquests,  for  relations  even 
with  distant  spaces,  is  transient  at  best.  The  affections 
nestle  in  the  home,  the  sympathies,  the  fields  of  labor,  the 
grateful  trust  in  enduring  ancestral  care. 


The  arrangement  of  the  Odes,  in  four  Books,  is  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  chronological1  and    even    topical,  but  Arrange_ 
mainly  governed    by  motives   of  practical   conve-  mem  of  the 
nience  and   public  advantage.     It  advances  from 
Common  life  to  public  biography,  honors  to  ancestors  and 
benefactors,  national   lessons,   pictures   of   the   results   of 
right  government  and  of  its  opposite.     This  last  interest 
has  dictated  the  collection,  and  governed  the  interpreta- 
tion as  well  as  the  arrangement,  of  the  whole.2 

A  series  of  popular  songs  reveals  the  old  civilization  of 
those  petty  States  which  were  merged  in  the  rule     BOOK 
of  Tcheou.     Transmitted  to  emperors,  or  collected    FlRST< 
by  them  on  the  periodic  tours,  these  songs  were  %f™'tL 
called  fung  (wind  powers) ;  either  because  moving  states. 

1  Dr.  Eitel  calls  the  chronology  "  a  rope  of  sand." 

2  To  the  conscientious  labors  of  Dr.    Legge   we   owe    the  possibility  of  any  thing  like 
trustworthy   reading  of  the  older  Chinese  classics.      We   have,    however,    availed   ourselves 
also  of  the  translations  of  what  are  called  the  "  Correct  Odes,"  by  Pauthier,  as  well  as  of  the 
far  less  valuable  old  version  of  the  Shi-king,  by  Pere  Lacharme  (Bibl.  Orientate,  Tome  II.). 
However  inferior  in  point  of  literal  fidelity  even  the  former  of  these  may  be  to  Dr.  L.'s  ver- 
sion, it  is  not  without  poetic  merit,  which  the  English  translator  would  probably  not  desire  to 
claim.     The  constructions  of  Riickert  upon  Lacharme' s  crude  basis  are,  as  translations,  of  no 


536  STRUCTURES. 

with  the  freedom  of  Nature,  or  as  indicating  functions  of 
government  through  their  report  of  popular  needs  and  de- 
sires.1 That  these  simple  ditties  and  fragmentary  refrains 
should  have  been  gathered  up  by  powers  interested  in  na- 
tional unity,  to  be  used  in  its  furtherance,  we  must  regard 
as  in  itself  a  landmark  in  the  history  of  civilization,  —  a  sign 
of  large  sympathies  and  constructive  aims.  That  the  polit- 
Spurious  ical  element,  which  in  China  is  really  the  religious, 
should  have  overborne  the  simple  and  popular  mean- 
ing, and  read  these  idyls  as  memorials  of  the  great  monarchs 
of  Chinese  history,  is  but  an  example  of  that  "eminent 
domain "  always  assumed  by  the  absolutism  of  organized 
social  ideals  over  the  natural  mind.  That  the  ruling  force 
in  this  case  is  the  national  unity,  the  goal  of  the  popular 
desire  itself,  must  not  be  forgotten. 

It  is  doubtful  if  there  are  half  a  dozen  pieces  in  this 
whole  book,  which  have  any  relation  whatever  to  govern- 
mental personages  ;  yet  the  titles  announce  royal  harems, 
princes  famous  or  infamous,  and  old  State  traditions,  all 
foisted  in  by  pure  faith  in  the  right  of  these  public  inter- 
ests to  absorb  every  other.  This  is  Chinese  mythology ; 
this  the  form  of  idealism  by  which  it  justifies  its  claim  to 
the  imaginative  faculty.  But  for  us  the  picture  of  old- 
time  China  remains,  —  of  the  soldier,  peasant,  singer,  in 
love  and  marriage,  in  labor  at  home  and  service  abroad, 
in  petty  trouble  and  great  duties,  idyllic  joys  and  bitter 
woes. 

The  book  opens  with  a  marriage  song,  praised  by  Con- 
Domestic  f ucius  for  a  singular  merit,  —  its  freedom  from 
strong  emotions ;  and  this  briefest  and  simplest  of 
all  such  effusions  is,  without  the  least  apparent  reason, 

value.  While  waiting  for  a  rendering  of  these  old  lyrics  of  China  in  a  form  which  shall  com- 
bine the  lyric  feeling  with  verbal  truth,  we  none  the  less  recognize  the  vast  debt  which  all  future 
efforts  in  this  kind  must  owe  to  the  researches  of  Dr.  Legge.  The  very  recent  metrical  ver- 
sion of  the  Shi,  by  this  author,  has  been  printed  since  these  pages  were  written. 

1  Chuhi.  See  Great  Preface.  They  relate  to  a  limited  region  about  the  Hoangho,  and 
cover  the  period  during,  and  perhaps  preceding,  the  sway  of  the  Tcheou. 


THE    SHI-KING.  537 

appropriated  to  the  marriage  of  the  great  King  Wan.  In 
the  love-songs  figures  the  symbolic  peach-blossom ;  maid- 
ens pine  for  suitors,  or  caution  them  against  unbecoming 
haste :  there  is  vague  melancholy  and  jubilant  hope.1 
Servants  mourn  the  departure  of  the  young  wife  from  her 
father's  house  ;  wives  complain  of  unkind  husbands,  and 
scandals  are  denounced  in  song.2  The  luxury  of  the  fine 
lady  is  satirized,  and  the  conceit  of  the  dandy,  and  even 
the  singer's  own  garments  that  do  not  suit  his  taste.3 
Women  gather  plantain  in  bunches  to  adorn  their  girdles, 
and  herbs  to  be  laid  by  pure  maidens  on  ancestral  shrines. 
The  swallow's  flight  sympathizes  with  the  restlessness  of 
grief.4  There  are  mutual  longings  of  separated  ones  ;  the 
soldier  on  .the  bare  hills  hears  his  mother's  voice  calling 

him  home. 

• 
"  O  thou  far  blue  heaven,  when  shall  we  return 

To  our  fields,  and  our  offerings  of  grain,  and  our  filial  cares  ?"5 

A  sister  protests  against  the  rules  which  forbid  her,  as  a 
married  woman,  to  revisit  her  family  home  to  assist  her 
brother  with  counsel ;  wives  separated  from  husbands  by 
poverty  or  by  death  sing  their  devotion  ;  sons  strive  to 
compose  the  heart  of  their  mother  ;  and  wanderers  lament 
that  they  can  call  only  strangers  by  the  hallowed  names  of 
kindred.6 

There  are  pleasant  pictures  of  domestic  happiness :  a 
husband  sings  his  pride  in  his  humble  home  and  frugal 
living ;  and  a  woman  is  praised  for  her  intelligence  in 
poetic  responses.7  A  few  obscure  odes  describe  lovers' 
quarrels ;  but  what  Confucius  means  by  the  licentious 
songs  of  Ching,  does  not  clearly  appear.8 

The  ideal  prince  rides  by,  with  starry  head-dress  and  lofty 

B.  I.  i.  6;  iii.  9;  ii.  12;  iii,  14;  vi.  10;  vii.  15  ;  vii.  20;  xii.  10. 

B.  I.  ii.  ii  ;  iii.  5;  iv.  2.  »  B.  I.,  iv.  3  ;  v.  6;  iii.  2.  *  B.  I.,  i.  8;  ii.  4;  iii-  3- 

B.  I  vi.  2  ;  iii.  3  ;  vi.  4 ;  x.  8  ;  ix.  4.  6  B.  I.,  iv.  10;  vi.  2  ;  iii.  7  ;  vi.  7. 

B.  I  viii.  i  ;  ii.  3  ;  i.  10;  i.  6 ;  vii.  8;  vii.  19;  xii.  4. 

B.  I.  vii.     See  Lunyu,  XV.  10. 


538  STRUCTURES. 

car,  finished  as  by  chisel  and  file,  grave,  magnanimous, 
gentle,  and  kind.  The  content  of  the  poor,  the  pleasures 
of  the  solitary,  the  miser's  self-neglect,  the  parsimony  of 
the  mean  rich  man,  are  not  forgotten  ;  nor  is  a  dirge  want- 
ing to  noble  youth  cut  off  at  its  flowering.1 

The  voice  of  the  people  makes  itself  heard  against  idle 
The  voice  ministers,  who  are  bidden  go  to  the  wood-cutter  for 
of  the  instruction  ;  and  against  the  horrible  practice  of 

burying  alive  at  the  graves  of  chiefs  ;  against  offi- 
cial extortions,  "  the  gnawing  of  rats  ;  "  against  frivolous 
rulers  and  useless  agents.2  The  bond  which  ties  a  people 
to  a  true  prince  is  described  as  "  a  knot  which  cannot  be 
loosed  ; "  he  is  "  a  bird  that  tenderly  hides  her  little  ones 
in  a  thick  covert  of  leaves."  And  the  troops  rejoice  in  the 
noble  aims  of  their  leaders  to  give  peace  .to  other  States.3 
Labor  The  songs  of  labor,  characteristically  detailing  the 

special  tasks  and  trophies  of  every  month,  are  too 
long  to  be  quoted.4  We  select  the  peasant  song  of  the 
people  of  T'sin  :  — 

1.  "The  cricket  is  already  in  the  hall,  and  the  year  is  drawing  to  its 

Peasant  close. 

song  of  If  we  are  not  happy  now,  the  days  and  months  will  pass 

T  sm>  away  in  vain. 

But  let  us  keep  in  bounds  :  'twill  be  sweet  to  have  done  as  we 

ought. 
Sweet  is  pleasure,  but  with  what  is  becoming  must  it  be  ever 

joined. 
Self-watchful  is  the  good  man,  even  in  his  transports  of  joy. 

2.  The  cricket  is  already  in  the  hall,  and  our  wains  are  still. 

If  we  are  not  happy  now,  the  days  and  months  will  pass  away  in 
vain. 

But  let  us  keep  in  bounds.  Let  us  be  mindful  of  the  griefs  that 
may  come. 

Sweet  is  pleasure,  but  with  respect  for  goodness  must  it  be  con- 
joined. 

The  good  man  is  quiet  and  serene."  6 

1  B.  I.  v.  i ;  xii.  3  ;  v.  2  ;  x.  2  ;  viii.  n.  *  B.  I.  ix.  6 ;  xi.  6 ;  ix.  7 ;  xiii.  i ;  xiv.  2. 

8  B.  I.  xiv.  3  ;  xv.  4.  *  See  especially  B.  I.  xv.  i.  6  B.  I.  x.  i. 


THE    SHI-KING.  539 

It  is  of  course  impossible  for  us  fully  to  appreciate  wherein 
consisted  the  poetic  charm  of  these  songs,  to  us  so  The  secret 
bare  and  commonplace,  so  often  childish,  though 
always  direct  and  sincere.  Some  secret  of  sympa- 
thetic  symbolism,  not  yet  penetrated,  must  hide  in  the 
favorite  usage  of  opening  them  with  figurative  allusion  to 
natural  objects ;  though  the  later  microscopic  treatment  of 
plants  and  creatures  is  wholly  wanting  in  these  earlier 
effusions.  The  absence  of  speculative  interest,  the  Ethical 
grasp  on  purely  concrete  aspects  of  things,  are  ^/J^f 
counterbalanced  by  a  depth  of  feeling  which  de-  nestness. 
serves  the  name  of  religion.  A  pensive,  often  complaining 
tone,  a  consciousness  of  hard  lot  and  heavy  burdens,  are 
mingled  with  intense  appreciation  of  the  blessings  of  home, 
and  with  positively  devout  loyalty  to  moral  laws,  to  filial 
and  paternal  sentiments,  to  the  marriage  tie.  The  very 
large  proportion  of  these  fung  odes  which  relate  to  domes- 
tic life,  and  are  even  composed  by  women,  —  covering  all 
experiences  of  their  sex,  and  fully  uttering  its  demands, 
—  impress  the  whole  book  with  a  certain  refinement  and 
delicacy  ;  a  feminine  element,  unlike  any  thing  in  the 
memorials  of  Aryan  or  Shemitic  literature.  Woman  can 
hardly  be  said  to  be  oppressed.  Polygamy  must  have  been 
rare,  and  possessed  but  little  ethical  sanction.  A  high 
appreciation  of  married  life  comes  alike  from  man  and 
woman ;  while  the  fact  that  in  later  times  such  tenderness 
and  devotion  is  mainly  confined  to  woman  alone,  appears 
to  point  to  a  subordinate  position  unknown  to  the  day  of 
the  Shi-king. 

Very  noteworthy  in  the  Odes  is  their  freedom  of  speech, 
which  is  praised  in  the  preface  as  one  of  their  Freedom 
highest  merits  ;  the  function  of  the  fung  being  ofsPeech- 
"  not  only  to  aid  the  rulers  to  elevate  «the  people,  but  the 
people  also  to  reprove  the  ruler."  These  early  odes  are 
distinguished  as  in  a  special  sense  "correct,'  perhaps  as  pro- 


54°  STRUCTURES. 

ceeding  from  the  standard  epoch  of  government.  And  we 
may  regard  it  as  very  creditable  to  the  Chinese  that  they 
have  been  made  the  fore-court  of  the  national  culture. 


From  the  manners  of  the  people,  the  compilers  of  the 
BoOK  Shi  naturally  hastened  on  to  the  "  Affairs  of  the 
SECOND.  Kingdom."  Of  this  class  of  odes  they  constructed 
Mmor  two  series :  the  first  (Siao-Ya),  relating  to  matters 
ute  KinS.  of  ordinary  interest,  being  gathered  in  this  second 
dom-  Book  ;  the  other,  celebrating  the  famous  founder  of 
the  Tcheou,  and  recounting  its  fortunes  in  a  more  elaborate 
way  in  the  succeeding  one.  Both  belong  especially  to  the 
royal  domains ;  unlike  the  fung,  which  were  products  of 
the  feudal  States.  The  first  twenty-two  pieces  are  ascribed 
to  the  Great  Duke  himself,  but  very  little  light  seems  to 
have  been  reached  respecting  their  dates. 

Here  begin  the  festal  odes,  in  which  the  princely  enter- 
Festaiodes  tainer  celebrates  his  viands  and  his  guests,  and  is 
at  family  met  by  similar  greetings.  Glad  at  heart  to  see  his 
ons'  noble  men,  he  appeals  to  the  creatures,  the  forest, 
and  the  plants  of  the  field  to  symbolize  his  joy.1  Baccha- 
nalian feasts,  sometimes  lauded,  are  in  other  odes  severely 
reproved.2  At  family  re-unions  are  sung  the  special  praises 
of  the  old,  and  open  feasts  held,  where  all  hearts  turn  to 
family  joys. 

"  Shall  the  birds  sing  to  their  mates,  and  man  not  have  his  beloved 
ones  ?  "  3 

"  Of  all  in  the  world,  none  are  equal  to  brothers  ;  they  feel  with  us 
in  sorrow,  seek  us  in  exile,  protect  us  from  insult.  Like  the  music  of 
lutes  is  the  love  of  wife  and  children  ;  but  the  accord  of  brothers 
assures  that  it  shall  last."  4 

A  mansion  is  dedicated  by  guests  with  good  wishes  for 

1  B.  II.  i.  i ;  ii.  3  ;  ii.  7 ;  vii.  2  ;  i.  6  ;  ii.  9 ;  iii.  i.  *  B.  II.  ii.  3,  5,  7,  9 ;  vii.  3,  6. 

8  B.  II.  i.  6,  5.  «  B.  II.  i.  4. 


THE    SHI-KING.  541 

the  builder  and  his  children,  with  hopes  that  the  diviners 
shall  find  in  their  bears  and  serpents  good  omens  of  sons 
who  shall  sleep  on  couches  and  play  with  sceptres  ;  and 
daughters  who  shall  sleep  on  the  earth  and  play  with  tiles 
(a  distinction  the  ground  of  which  does  not  appear)  :  the 
lord  himself  shall  lie  on  his  bamboo  mat,  and  brothers  shall 
live  in  mutual  love.1  The  tribe  of  herdsmen  come  before  us 
with  their  wealth  of  cattle,  black-lipped,  flapping  their  ears ; 
of  horned,  peaceful  sheep  ;  "  they  come  down  the  hills 
and  drink  at  the  pools  ;  they  lie  down  and  roam  about ; 
strong  and  uninjured,  at  the  wave  of  the  shepherd's  hand, 
they  go  up  to  the  field."  2  At  ancestral  feasts,  the  food 
goes  round  "  in  due  form,  every  word  and  smile  as  it  should 
be,"  with  wishes  for  "  myriad  years  of  life  ;  "  the  youth  who 
personates  the  ancestors  announces  the  good-will  of  the 
honored  shades,  and  bears  away  the  tablets  to  the  sound  of 
bells  and  drums."  3  "  The  offering  of  the  red  bull  binds  the 
services  to  the  labors  of  the  field  ;  and  the  "  Fathers  of 
Husbandry"  are  invoked.4  The  land-surveyor  en-  Country 
courages  the  best  laborers,  "rejoicing  in  their  task  lifeceie- 
amidst  the  luxuriant  grain,"  where  "  crops  are 
thick  as  thatch,  and  stacks  stand  in  mounded  isles."  5  The 
farmer  sings  the  beauty  of  his  growing  grain,  and  "  the 
fruit  that  lies  soft  in  the  sheath." 

"It  hardens  healthily,  free  of  weeds  :  from  heart  and  leaf,  from 
root  and  fruit,  we  pick  off  the  insects  that  might  harm  the  young  plants. 
The  dense  clouds  rise  :  may  it  rain  first  on  the  public,  then  on  the  pri- 
vate fields.  Sheaves  of  the  new  grain  we  leave  unreaped  by  handfuls 
on  the  ground,  for  the  widow's  share."  * 

Mingled  with  these  idyllic  notes  are  preludes  of  the  dark 
days  coming  on  degenerate  Tcheou  :  warnings  and  Thedark 
rebukes,  hints  of  the  ideal  virtue  demanded  in  evil  times 

coming. 

times. 

1  B.  II.  iv.  5.  *  B.  II.  iv.  6.  *  B.  II.  vL 

*  B.  II.  vL  6.  6  B.  II.  vi.  7.  «  B.  II.  vi.  8. 


542  STRUCTURES. 

"  Let  every  man  have  his  standard  for  constant  rule  ;  teach  his 
children  the  right  way.  Even  as  one  walking  on  thin  ice  is  the  man 
of  uprightness  :  in  imprisonment  and  torture  let  him  be  vigilant  as  one 
who  descends  a  precipice."  l 

There  is  longing  for  the  simple  living  and  noble  manners 
of  the  older  time.2  Private  troubles,  too  various  to  specify, 
have  found  their  way  by  some  fancied  or  real  relation  to 
War  bur-  public  affairs  into  these  larger  monitions  of  social 
change.3  The  war  burdens  press  heavily.  The  lot 
of  the  soldier  on  the  borders  is  not  hid. 

"  When  shall  we  return  ?     When  return  ? 
The  willows  were  green  at  our  parting  ;  the  snows  will  be  falling  in 

clouds  ere  we  come  back. 

Alas,  the  tedious  marches,  the  hunger  and  thirst, 
The  wounding  of  the  heart,  and  none  to  know  our  sadness."  * 
"  How  are  we  alone  dealt  with  as  if  we  were  not  men  ? 
As  if  we  were  rhinoceros  or  tiger,  to  be  kept  in  these  desolate 
wilds  !  " 5 

Far  away  the  wives  are  watching  in  vain  :  — 

"  Lonely  stands  the  pear-tree  with  its  bright  fruit. 
The  days  lengthen  out ;  my  woman-heart  is  wounded  ;  yet  he  does 
not  come."6 

While  triumphal  songs  greet  the  general  on  his  return, 
and  royal  hunts  have  their  Pindaric  odes,7  high  officials  on 
distant  missions  celebrate  the  anxious  zeal  with  which  they 
fulfil  the  onerous  commands  of  the  prince  ;  their  "  horses 
never  halt  ;"  it  is  toil  and  plan  without  respite,  "so  long 
as  the  spine  endures."  8 

"  When  will  his  bad  and  crooked  counsels  stop  ?  We  rush  down 
like  waters  from  their  spring,  and  shall  sink  in  common  ruin.  "  9 

A  bold  critic  charges  the  evil  to  choice  of  bad  council- 
Prophetic  lors,  and  dares  to  put  the  name  of  the  guilty  in  his 
warnings,  indictment. 

1  B.  II.  v.  2.  2  B.  u,  vjii.  r>  3  B.  II.  vii.  5 ;  v.  6 ;  viii.  5  ;  v.  5,  7,  8. 

4  B.  II.  i.  7.  6  B.  n.  viii.  I0.  8  B   IL  ;  9>  7  B.  II.  iii.  4,  5,  6. 

•  B.  II.  i.  3,  2 ;  vi.  i ;  iii.  3,  4 ;  vi.  2.  »  B.  II.  v.  i. 


THE    SHI-KING.  543 

"  O  pitiless  Heaven,  it  is  not  right !   His  mean  relatives  in  high  places  ! 
Nor  will  he  correct  his  heart,  but  resents  the  effort  to  improve  him."  x 

Another  prophet  cries  :  — 

"  Why  was  not  this  time  before  me,  or  after  me  ?  The  people  will 
be  reduced  to  servitude  ;  they  look  to  Heaven,  but  all  is  dark.  But 
let  Heaven  will,  and  none  can  resist.  Does  the  great  God  hate  any 
one  ?  You  consult  divines  ;  they  all  say,  *  We  are  wise  !  '  But  does  the 
male  crow  differ  (in  blackness)  from  the  female  ?  We  say  of  the  heavens 
that  they  are  high  ;  yet  I  dare  not  stand  upright :  of  the  earth  that  it 
is  thick  ;  yet  I  must  walk  daintily  on  it.  I  have  reason  for  my  free- 
dom of  speech.  Alas  for  the  time  !  The  majestic  capital  of  Tcheou 
is  perishing!  The  rich  may  survive  it;  but  alas  for  the  helpless 
and  solitary  !  "  2 

"  O  great  Heaven,  how  hast  thou  shut  up  thy  love  !  Compassionate 
Heaven,  arrayed  in  terrors  !  why  revealest  thou  not  thy  care  ?  Leav- 
ing criminals  aside,  who  have  but  paid  just  penalty,  the  innocent  are 
involved  in  the  same  ruin.  Why  will  he  not  listen  to  justice  ?  Why. 
O  Officers,  will  ye  not  respect  each  other,  nor  stand  in  awe  of  Heaven  ? 
Alas  !  there  are  no  words  for  it ;  'tis  deeper  than  the  tongue  can 
speak.  Words  that  can  be  spoken  prosper.  Artful  speech  flows  like 
water,  and  the  speaker  dwells  at  ease.  See  how  perilous  is  office.  By 
advice  given  in  vain,  you  offend  the  prince,  —  you  offend  your  friends 
even.  Painful  are  my  inmost  thoughts.  I  weep  tears  of  blood."  8 

The  best  of  the  Hebrews,  with  far  more  poetic  wealth, 
had  no  more  devotion  to  justice  and  the  people, 

r  Their  earn- 

no  more  valor  in  denouncing  wrong,  than  these  estnessand 
patriotic  censors  of  the  degenerate  princes  of  the  courase- 
House  of  Tcheou.  We  cannot  wonder  that  when  Chi- 
li wang-ti  wanted  to  play  the  master  in  China,  and  subdue 
the  border  tribes  by  means  of  merciless  conscriptions, 
he  tried  to  destroy  this  Book  of  peace,  justice,  and  hu- 
manity. 

We  have  in  these  jeremiads  full  light  on  the  procedures 
of  those  elements  of  the  national  character  by  which  Tht  Jere_ 
wars  of  aggrandizement,  often  doubtless  even  of 

»  B.  II.  iv.  7.  2  B.  II.  iv.  8.  8  B.  II.  iv.  10. 


544  STRUCTURES. 

defence,  are  resisted.  It  does  not  well  appear  how  empires 
could  be  reared,  where  such  distaste  for  the  sacrifices  and 
methods  involved  in  their  support  controls  the  people.  In 
what  other  form  this  predominance  of  the  anti-political 
element  exerted  its  influence  in  times  preceding  the  de- 
struction of  Tcheou,  we  know  only  from  the  instances  of 
Confucius  and  Mencius  ;  who  do  not  point  back  to  earlier 
itinerant  councillors  like  themselves,  but  who  must,  never- 
theless, be  outgrowths  from  other  expressions  of  a  ten- 
dency so  powerful  in  the  national  mind.  They  were,  at 
all  events,  genuine  representatives  of  moral  insights  and 
restraints,  which  no  force  of  political  necessity  has  been 
able  to  silence,  or  even  disparage. 

In  this  Book  the  feminine  interest  recedes  before  gov- 
ernmental figures  and  scenes  which  represent  the 

The  fern-  ~ 

inine  eie-  tortuncs  of  the  nation  as  a  whole.  Yet  the  strain 
ment.  of  woman's  inseparable  part  in  all  these  is  not 
wanting ;  and  it  is  always  of  the  humane,  sympathetic,  and 
admonitory  sort  which  we  have  heard  in  the  earlier  odes. 

The  "  Greater  Odes  "  (Ta-Ya)  are  a  sustained  judgment- 
BOOK  record  of  the  House  of  Tcheou,  tried  by  the  high 
THIRD.  standard  of  religion  and  morals,  from  its  rise  un- 
Greater  der  Wan  and  Woo  to  the  days  of  its  degeneracy. 
Hu*King-  Again  the  principal  are  ascribed  to  the  Great 
dom.  Duke,  lawgiver  of  the  rescued  land,  and  brother 
of  Wan. 

The  first  is  an  apotheosis  of  virtue  :  — 

"  King  Wan  is  on  high  :  bright  in  heaven.  He  ascends  and  descends 
Divine  on  ^ie  ^  anc*  "ght  of  Shangte. 

honors  to  Full  was  he  of  earnest  activity  ;  his  fame  is  without  end. 
virtuous  His  good  gifts  descend  to  a  hundred  generations.1 

Born   of  pure   father  and  mother,  watchful  and   reverent, 
with  wisdom  served  he  God,  and  won  the  blessing. 

1  B.  III.  i.  i. 


THE    SHI-KING.  545 

Below  is  required  the  illustration  of  virtue.     The  dread  Majesty  is  on 
high."  » 

The  people  greet  their  deliverer,  admiring  his  noble 
port,  his  splendor  like  the  stars  :  his  self-possession,  his 
freedom  from  all  crooked  ways  : 2  — 

"  When  alone  he  felt  as  when  observed.  Without  admonition  followed 

the  right. 
Grown  up  men  became  virtuous  through  him,  and  the  young  went 

ever  onward."  3 

In  these  and  other  odes  are  commemorated  the  civilizing 
work  achieved  by  Wan  and  Woo  ;  their  filial  piety  ;  Their  civil- 
the  virtues  of  their  mothers  and  wives  ;   the  love  izinswork- 
and  gratitude  of  their  people.4     The  fortunes  of  Tcheou 
are  rehearsed  out  of  the  ancient  legends,  from  the  Thefor. 
days  when  its  tribes  lived  in  caves  to  the  conquest  tunes  of 
of  the  empire  by  Wan,  and  the  obedience  of  the 
multitudes  ;  "  drawn  in    part  by  his  victories,  in  part  by 
his  protection  of   the  weak  against    the  mighty."5     The 
older  Chinese  ideal  of  royalty  is  shown  in  the  picture  of 
Leou,  sitting    at   meat  with   his   officials,  measuring   the 
lands,  building  guest-houses,  fixing  revenues,  and  pushing 
cultivation  along  the  Hoang-ho.6  The  religion  of  agriculture 
has  its  curiously  Messianic  symbol  in  How-tseih,  .^  Agri_ 
born  of  a  pure  virgin  who  has  trodden  in  a  foot-  cultural 
print  of  God  after  praying  for  a  child,  and  whose 
delivery  is  without  pains  ;  exposed  in  a  narrow  place,  where 
the  oxen  and  sheep  protect  him  ;  in  a  forest,  where  the  wood- 
men find  him  ;  in  the  ice,  where  the  birds  cover  him,  and 
respond  to  his  infant  cries.    Majestic  even  in  his  babyhood  ; 
in  childhood  planting  grains  and  raising  pulse,  wheat,  and 
hemp,  which  he  teaches  the  people  to  cultivate,  that  they 
may  bear  them  home  for  an  offering.     To  him  it  is  owing 

1  B.  in.  i.  2.  *  B.  in.  i.4,  s-  »B.  m.i.  6. 

*  B.  III.  i.  8,  9  10.  6  B.  III.  i.  3.  «  B.  III.  iii.  i. 

35 


546 


STRUCTURES. 


that  the  wine  and  meat  are  offered  at  the  New  Year's 
feast,  well  pleasing  to  Shang-te.1  A  strange  old  myth  in 
this  locality,  yet  forcibly  recalling  those  in  which  the  Red 
Tribes  of  America  celebrate  the  growing  of  the  grain,  and 
embodying  ethical  and  spiritual  symbols  with  which  my- 
thology is  wont  to  surround  the  birth  and  infancy  of  the 
most  various  ideals.  We  note  throughout  the  book  the 
Providen  Providential  aspect  of  history,  the  almost  Shemitic 
tiaiviewof  God,  surveying  the  world,  sending  down  his  judg- 

tory>  ments,  raising  up  leaders,  holding  the  ages  to  his 
unchanging  moral  laws  ;  yet  without  a  sign  of  national  or 
tribal  exclusiveness,  nor  hint  of  war  on  other  gods.2 

But  dark  omens  of  corruption  call  for  closer  dealing, 
The  Dark  and  we  have  warnings  and  rebukes  as  stern  as 
Isaiah's,  increasing  as  we  go  on. 


"It  is  vain  for  you  to  scorn  my  words  because  I  am  your  fellow- 
Prophets  servant. 

again.  n  was  sai(j  of  o\^  i  Consult  the  gatherers  of  grass  and  fire- 
wood.' 

'  Tis  the  good  that  are  the  fence  ;  the  people  that  are  the  wall. 

Stand  in  awe  of  Heaven,  be  afraid  to  dally  and  slumber, 

All  your  doings  are  seen  above."  3 

"  Alas,  ruler  of  Yin  !  you  employ  those  who  answer  you  with  lies. 

Robbers  are  in  your  court;  thence  come  curses  and  oaths  without 
limit. 

Alas  !  'tis  not  Heaven  that  flushes  your  faces,  that  you  follow  evil, 

Turning  night  into  day,  carousing  and  shouting."  4 

"  Upon  every  State,  alas,  the  doom  hurries  on. 

The  deer  in  the  woods  consort  together  :  but  here  friends  are  false 
and  help  not  each  other. 

And  the  people  say,  '  We  can  go  neither  backward  nor  forward.' 

O  my  People,  like  a  bird,  wounded  as  it  flies,  I  would  do  you  good, 
but  you  hate  me  the  more."  5 

Amidst  these  evil  days  the  good   reign  of  Seuen  falls 


1  B.  III.  ii.  i. 
«  B.  III.  iii.  ,. 


2  B.  III.  i.  7;  i.  i,  2. 
«  B.  III.  iii.  3. 


3  B.  III.  ii.  9,  10. 


THE    SHI-KING.  547 

like  a  benediction,  lasting  nearly  half  a  century.    His  self- 
reproaches  and  prayers  for  his  people  in  time  of  The  good 
drought  ;  his  perception  that,  "  in  creating  the  mul-  Kins 
titucle,  Heaven  annexed  to  every  faculty  and  rela- 
tion its  special  law,  and  gave  to  all  a  normal  love  of  right ; " 
the  blessings  of  a  humanity,  that  "  insulted  not  the  poor 
nor  the  widow,  nor  feared  the  oppressors  of   the  weak," 
and  bade  his  generals  in  subduing  rebellion  "  not  to  dis- 
tress the  people,  but  to  open  up  the  country  to  cultiva- 
tion," —  are  greeted  by  the  poets  of  the  time  with  fully 
appreciative  strains.1 

To   the  darkest  time  of  all,  the  reign  of  Yeou,   there 
belongs  the  saddest  wail  of  this  Puritan  poetry;  Theevil 
which  some  bitter  experience  of    mis-government  reign  of 
has  driven,  we  regret  to  say,  into  one  of  those  dia-  Yeou' 
tribes  against  the  intermeddling  of  women  in  public  affairs, 
to  which  the  literature  of  no  nation  is  a  stranger.2 

More  affirmative  of  good  is  the  self-admonition  of  some 
Chinese  Antoninus  to  self-watchfulness,  humility,  and  noble 
manners  :  — 

"  Be  careful  of  your  speech.  A  flaw  in  jade  may  be  ground  away  : 
but  a  flaw  in  speech  is  hopeless.  Royal  self- 

Speak  not  lightly.  Say  not,  '  This  is  a  small  matter.'  admonition. 
Words  are  not  to  be  cast  away. 

Every  word  finds  its  answer :  every  deed  its  reward. 

Shame  not  yourself  before  the  light  that  falls  into  your  private  chamber. 

Say  not,  'This  is  not  public:  none  see  me.'  The  coming  of  spiritual 
beings  cannot  be  calculated  ; 

The  less  should  they  be  slighted. 

The  soft  elastic  wood  can  have  its  silken  string.  The  mild  and  rever- 
ent man  has  the  foundations  of  virtue."  8 

The  value  of  these  Odes  is  in  presenting  the  times  in 
which,  as  in  a  forge,  the  Chinese  State  was  shaped,  Free  criti_ 
in  a  clear  historic  record,  free  from  mythology,  and  cism  of 
flowing  through  the  emotions  of  the  people.     No 

1  B.  III.  iii.  4,  6,  8.  *  B.  III.  iii.  10.  >  B.  III.  iii.  2. 


STRUCTURES. 

other  race  has  a  similar  record :  the  memorial  of  ages  of 
monarchy,  yet  thoroughly  ethical  and  democratic,  and  at  war 
with  every  form  of  oppression.  No  princely  bribe  or  frown 
mars  this  perfect  frankness.  No  Miltonic  Areopagitica  is 
needed.  Behind  these  protests  the  question  of  free  speech 
lies  settled :  the  poets  do  not  argue  it,  they  act  on  the 
inward  conviction  and  speak  out.  Not  an  ode  is  to  be 
found  sympathizing  with  the  strong  against  the  weak. 
Confucius  has  done  his  work  thoroughly,  if  his  it  be.  The 
earnest  interest  in  humanity  absorbs  all  praise  of  letters  or 
art ;  'tis  the  common  good  that  is  enforced  at  every  turn. 
A  gospel  Laying  and  testing  the  foundation  of  a  great  State 
of  civiiiza-  is  what  these  bards  were  busy  at ;  conscious  or 
unconscious  of  it,  they  are  always  serious  and 
simple,  like  men  detailed  for  a  great  service.  In  advocacy 
of  the  people,  the  Ya  follow  up  the  Fung.  The  Shi-king 
is  a  gospel  of  civilization. 


This  is  apparent  in  the  final  Book,  for  which  is  reserved 
BOOK  the  completion  of  the  political  ideal.  It  contains 
FOURTH.  ^  re]igjous  honors  paid  by  the  State  to  its  great- 

Thf  Sacri-  .     .  -  ... 

odes  est  personages  ;    thanksgiving  for  the  blessings  of 


of  Tckeou.  Heaven  on  its  productive  labors  ;  sacrificial  odes 
for  ancestral  temples  and  to  the  spirits  of  the  earth  ;  and 
Thereii-  congratulations  on  good  government  and  public 
ofTheCr°Vn  prosperity.  These  are  Odes  of  the  Temple  and 
shi-king.  Altar  (Sung),  and  mainly  relate  to  sacrificial  sea- 
sons. The  older  are  of  course  ascribed  to  the  Great  Duke, 
but  their  real  dates  are  unknown. 

In   the   "solemn   stillness"    of   the  Ancestral   Temple 
Ancestral     honors  are  paid  to  Wan,  "of  whom  men  will  never  • 
honore^o    become  weary  ;  "    "  whose  statutes  will  endure  for 
the  good,     ever;"  "whose  personal  virtues,  and  whose  loving 
care  of  later  generations,  are  signs  of  the  deep  ordinances 


THE    SHI-KING.  549 

of  Heaven."  1  Praise  is  given  to  Woo  as  "  model  in  war, 
protector  in  peace."2  A  bull  is  offered  by  Woo,  which 
Wan  descends  to  receive,  hearing  the  prayer,  — 

"  O  great  and  august  Father  !  comfort  me  your  filial  son. 

To  my  most  exalted  Father  and  Mother  I  offer  this  sacrifice.'13 

Jubilant  the  praises  of  the  conqueror,  bringing  peace  to 
the  land.4  Honors  also  to  the  "  deep  and  silent  virtue  of 
Ching,  who  dared  not  rest  idly  on  the  foundations  of  Wan 
and  Woo,  but  by  night  and  day  enlarged  them  ;"5  "  to  How- 
tsieh,  companion  of  Heaven,  for  the  nutritious  grains  and 
the  civilizing  laws  :  "6  to  ancestors,  "for  the  well  filled  gran- 
aries, and  the  sweet  wine  for  sacrifices."  7  Thanksgiving 
Odes  describe  the  peasants  at  their  tasks  :  — 

"  Sharp  are  their  shares.     They  sow  the  various  grain,  each  seed  a 

germ  of  life.  Peasant 

With  light  splint  hats  they  ply  their  hoes,  and  weed  both  Thanksgiv- 

wet  and  dry.  ings- 

The  rustling  grain  before  the  reapers  falls :    the  sheaves  stand  (up) 

firm  and  high. 
The  hundred  barns  thrown  wide,  the  granaries  full,  make  wives  and 

children  glad. 
The  muzzled  bull  with  crooked  horns  we  slay ;  our  fathers  taught  the 

rite."8 

Still  further  back,  grateful  memories  celebrate  T'ang,  the 
earliest  deliverer,  who  overthrew  the  dynasty  of  the  Hia 
long  before  Wan  and  Woo  dealt  like  judgment  on  the 
Shang.9 

"  O  ye  great  Kings  ! "  cries  the  young  Ching,  on  his  ac- 
cession, "I  will  strive  not  to  forget  you :  I,  a  little  Pra  erof 
child,  on  whom  this  unsettled  State  has  devolved,  a  child 
day  and  night  will  be  so  reverent.     I  am  solitary  ernperon 

1  B.  IV.  i.  i,  2,  3.  2  B.  IV.  iii.  8,  9.  •  B.  IV.  i.  7;  ii.  7. 

«  B.  IV.  i.  8.  •  B.  IV.  i.  6.  o  B.  IV.  i.  10. 

»  B.  IV.  ii.  4.  8  B.  IV.  iii.  6  ;  also  iii.  5.  »  B.  IV.,  PT.  in.  i.  i,  2. 


55O  STRUCTURES. 

and  full  of  anxious  care.     And  you  my  ministers,  teach  me 
how  to  do  right."  1 

The  praise  of  a  good  king  and  a  happy  reign,  —  where 
Final  ode.  the  people  are  held  in  respect,  and  justice  is  impar- 
tially rendered  and  without  excess,  and  the  building  of  an 
ancestral  temple  gives  a  home  where  the  royal  tablet  shall 
for  ever  abide,  —  fitly  closes  this  dedication  of  ancient  his- 
tory and  ideal  faith  to  the  filial  piety  of  a  race.  This  fourth 
and  last  Book  places  the  seal  of  religion  on  common  life 
and  simple  sentiment,  embalmed  in  the  strains  of  thirty 
centuries  ago. 

1  B.  IV.,  PT.  i.  iii.  i.  a,  3. 


SAGES. 


I. 


RATIONALISM. 


RATIONALISM. 


A  MAJORITY  of  those  earliest  Orientalists,  the  Ro- 
^~*-  man  Catholic  missionaries,  have  bestowed  Chinese 
much  praise  on  the  Chinese  for  their  monotheistic  "Atheism." 
beliefs,  some  of  them  going  so  far  as  to  find  foreshadowings 
of  Christian  dogmas  in  their  classical  books.  But  a  smaller 
party  have  insisted  that  they  were  "  atheists,"  and  devoid 
of  spiritual  perceptions.  These  extremes  of  opinion  are 
natural.  They  are  the  differing  results  produced  in  different 
temperaments  by  palpable  failures  in  converting  the  Chinese 
to  forms  of  belief  alien  to  their  mental  habits ;  one  class 
giving  way  to  severe  judgment,  the  other  applying  their 
fancy  to  the  literature  of  the  race  to  detect  capabilities 
they  could  not  so  readily  find  in  the  men  and  women  before 
them.  If  we  take  the  term  in  its  distinctively  Christian 
sense,  it  is  probable  that  the  advocates  of  the  "  atheism  "  of 
the  Chinese  have  come  nearer  the  truth  than  their  more 
idealistic  opponents.  The  Protestants,  more  strict  inter- 
preters of  Christian  dogma  than  the  Catholics,  and  less 
inclined  to  see  anticipations  of  it  in  the  heathen,  have  in 
the  ratio  of  their  own  orthodoxy  been  disposed  to  regard 
the  sons  of  Han  as  "  unbelievers  in  a  God."  The  rise  of 
free  philosophy  in  recent  times  has  given  a  clearer  form  to 
the  charge.  And  since  Rationalism  became  a  recognized 
method  of  opposition  to  unquestioning  belief  in  Judaism 
and  Christianity,  this  (so  called)  "  atheism "  has  been 
ascribed  to  the  "rationalistic"  qualities  of  the  Chinese 

mind. 


554  SAGES. 

"  The  philosophers,"  wrote  Morison  to  his  wife  from 
China,  "  are  atheists :  as  for  the  common  people,  O  ye  ra- 
tionalists, mark  here  the  fruits  of  your  '  reason.' " 1  •  The 
good  missionary  had  indeed  up-hill  work.  Neumann  says 
he  went  to  see  the  six  or  seven  persons  for  whom  Morison 
held  Christian  services,  and  that  he  could  not  trace  on  their 
faces  the  slightest  signs  of  religious  interest  in  the  doctrines 
set  before  them.2 

Morison  was  asked  by  his  Chinese  teacher  in  London, 
whether  Jesus  was  man  or  woman, — a  question  probably 
meant  as  a  criticism  on  the  intelligence  of  the  Christian 
God.  Praying  was  equally  unintelligible  to  him  :  it  "  led 
to  nothing  ;  man  must  help  himself."  As  for  converting 
the  Chinese,  "  it  might  as  well  be  given  up ; "  they  "  had 
Confucius,  and  could  dispense  with  idle  fables."3  Milne 
thought  it  worth  his  while  to  illustrate  Chinese  rationalism 
by  a  Confucian  who  distinctly  "  denied  the  depravity  of  the 
heart,  and  the  doctrine  that  God  could  be  worshipped  by 
man."  4  According  to  Doolittle,  "  they  have  great  contempt 
for  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  and  are  fond  of  making 
sport  of  solemn  subjects,  like  wicked  men  in  Christian  coun- 
tries. They  ask  if  the  bottom  of  heaven  will  not  fall  out, 
if  so  many  enter  it ;  have  no  doctrine  of  vicarious  atone- 
ment for  sin,  and  deride  the  scriptural  account  of  its 
entrance  into  the  world,  and  do  not  admit  the  innate 
depravity  of  human  nature.  They  believe  in  fate,  not  in 
an  omniscient  Being.  Their  sages  have  never  been  able 
to  trace  with  distinctness  the  doctrine  of  the  creation  and 
government  of  all  things,  the  originality  of  sin,  &c."5 
Father  Lecomte  (1698)  says  "their  hearts  rose  chiefly 
against  the  Trinity  and  Incarnation  :  a  God  that  was  pene- 
trable and  could  die -was  a  piece  of  folly;  though  the 
existence  of  a  God  eternal,  supreme,  and  infinitely  just 

1  Zeitsch.  d.  D.  M.  G.  I.  100.  2  Ibid.,  p.  115.  3  Ibid.,  p.  107. 

*  Chinese  Repos.,  Jan.  1844.  5  Doolittle's  Chinese,  II.  391-402. 


RATIONALISM.  555 

went  easily  down  with  them."  l  This  father,  according  to 
his  own  story,  frightened  a  native  rationalist  (who  could  see 
no  difference  between  his  own  fables  and  those  of  Christi- 
anity, and  doubted  both)  into  a  terrible  dream,  in  which  he 
saw  hell-punishments,  and  also  heavenly  rewards,  "  so  that 
he  was  glad  enough  to  be  baptized."  2 

Is  all  this  illustrative  of  the  national  mind  ?  Doubtless 
it  is.  It  means  that  Chinese  are  not  theological,  Whatthe 
like  Europeans  ;  that  mysteries  which  require  that  charge 
such  natural  faculties  as  reason  and  observation  S1 
should  be  treated  as  incapable  in  matters  of  religion  are  to 
them  simply  absurd ;  and  further,  that  holding  their  minds 
directly  to  the  tests  of  positive  fact,  they  make  no  essential 
separation  between  the  actual  and  the  ideal,  the  world  and 
its  substance,  Nature  and  God.  However  4< atheistic"  this 
may  seem  to  the  distinctively  Christian  consciousness,  it  is 
by  no  means  necessarily  so  to  the  intuitive  or  the  scientific. 
Rationalistic  it  certainly  is.  We  must  add  that  this  ration- 
alism, doubtless  exaggerated  by  the  limited  rangeof  Chinese 
speculation  in  purely  abstract  ideas,  is  at  precisely  the  op- 
posite extreme  from  the  religion  of  the  Christian  mission- 
ary. He  has  his  system  of  faith,  built  on  the  peculiar 
study  of  the  Infinite  in  itself;  inconceivable  profundities, 
which,  so  far  from  being  comprehended,  are  to  be  accepted 
by  an  act  of  pure  abandonment  to  the  impossible :  infinite 
sin  ;  infinite  penalty  ;  infinite  distance  of  a  creator  from  his 
work ;  infinite  gulf  between  God  and  the  soul ;  infinite 
atonement  by  an  infinite  being ;  infinite  inability  in  finite 
man  to  help  himself. 

The  Chinese,  at  the  other  extreme,  finds  this  abstract 
and  outside  Infinite  to  be  without  relation  to  the  facts  of 
experience.  Not  only  are  his  human  faculties  very  ob- 
viously, to  his  mind,  the  source  of  all  his  knowledge,  and 
their  active  relations  with  the  world  their  only  real  life ; 

1  China,  p.  394.  2  Ibid,  p.  396. 


SAGES. 

but  religion  itself,  the  ideal  world,  means  the  ultimate 
perfection  of  things  concrete,  —  namely,  the  State,  which 
embraces  the  whole  of  human  relations.  The  Shing-jin 
(saints)  of  China,  and  the  kami  (gods)  of  Japan,  are  men 
who  have  done  it  service.  These  cults  are  historical,  a 
tribute  to  Humanity. 

It  is  the  meeting  of  the  positivist  and  the  supernatural- 
Meeting  of  *st>  between  whom  mutual  understanding  is  next  to 
theposi-  impossible.  To  the  mandarin  the  missionary  is  a 

tivist  and       r       ,   .  .  .       . 

the  super-  *°°*  m  perception  ;  to  the  missionary  the  mandarin 
naturalist.  js  an  idiot  in  religious  faith.  Doolittle  mentions 
with  complacency1  that  he  turned  his  back  on  the  tablet 
of  Confucius  to  lecture  the  crowd  on  the  sinfulness  of 
"  worshipping  great  men  ; "  and  doubtless  then  proceeded 
to  teach  them  the  duty  of  adoring  Jesus  as  their  God ! 

The  innate  rationalism  of  the  Chinese  is  naturally  most 
Rational-  developed  in  the  cultivated  classes,  who  are  quite 
m  of  the  impervious  to  Christian  dogma,  though  very  open 
class  hf  to'  Western  science.  The  chronicles  relate  that 
china.  Hwang-gan-chi,  a  minister  of  the  Sung,  opposed 
the  idea  that  droughts  and  earthquakes  were  penalties  for 
human  crime.  "  Do  you  expect  to  change  the  order  of 
Nature  ?  Do  you  wish  that  new  laws  should  be  made  for 
you  ?  "  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  Emperor  yielded 
to  his  clear-headed  adviser  on  a  point  where  delusion  has 
in  all  faiths  and  all  ages  been  so  prevalent.  In  the  sleep- 
ing chamber  of  Tai-tsung  was  found  a  magpie's  nest,  which 
was  popularly  regarded  as  the  happiest  of  omens.  But  the 
royal  sage  was  ashamed  of  such  fancies.  "  The  omens  that 
I  trust  are  wise  men  who  help  my  people."  2  Hung-wu, 
emperor  in  the  fourteenth  century,  said  :  "  The  best  augury 
for  a  prince  is  to  lay  aside  his  faults." 3  The  Imperial 
Edict  of  Kang-hi  enjoins  on  the  people  to  avoid  following 

*  Doolittle,  I.  368.  2  De  Mailla,  VI.  59 ;  Wuttkc,  II.  61. 

8  De  Mailla,  X.  73  ;  Wuttke,  Ibid. 


RATIONALISM.  557 

miracles  and  mysterious  dogmas,  in  place  of  the  great  nat- 
ural relations  and  duties  of  humanity.1  Hang-yu,  states- 
man in  the  T'ang,  protested  against  the  worship  of  relics 
by  a  Buddhist  Emperor;2  and  Wang-ching,  a  leading  meta- 
physician, applied  rationalistic  criticism  to  the  whole  body 
of  Chinese  literature,  weeding  out  superstitions  from  the 
writings  of  every  school.3  The  "  Sacred  Edict "  not  only 
repudiates  the  relic-and-miracle  worship  of  the  Buddhist 
and  Tao-sse  schools,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Christians,  but 
describes  their  promises  of  future  rewards  for  mere  phrases 
and  rites  as  delusions,  contrary  to  the  facts  of  law  and  life. 
Yung-ching's  commentary  on  the  "  Sacred  Edict  "  explains 
that  the  Chinese  Government  has  employed  the  services  of 
Christians  purely  on  account  of  their  scientific  knowledge.4 
In  the  spirit  of  Tai-tsung's  saying  that  "  good  and  evil  do 
not  depend  on  the  calendar,  but  on  good  or  evil  deeds," 
are  many  edicts  denouncing  magical  rites,  idolatrous  cere- 
monies, and  even  prayers  for  rain.  When  Ricci  brought 
Catholic  images  and  relics,  the  Minister  of  Rites  said :  "  The 
foreigner  tells  us  these  bones  belong  to  immortal  beings  ; 
why  did  they  not  take  them  with  themselves  ?  As  for  the 
images  of  Heaven  and  the  Virgin,  they  are  worthless." 
The  Ming  Annals  record  similar  estimates,5  and  the  Penal 
Code  punishes  magic  as  an  offence  against  public  order. 
To  Christian  warnings  of  a  Judgment  Day  the  reply  is 
naturally  that  of  the  old  Confucian,  who  said,  with  indig- 
nation :  "  If  our  great  sage  is  in  hell,  then  I  wish  to  go  there 
also."  6  A  modern  disciple  of  Chu-hi  points  out  the  super- 
stition of  ascribing  personal  existence  to  the  elements,  and 
to  Heaven  and  Earth,  "as  if  these  deities  were  enjoying 
viands  and  using  utensils."  These  expressions  in  the  old 

1  Milne's  Translation,  pp.  132,  133. 

2  Mayers,  Chin.  Reader"1  $  Manual,  p.  50.  3  Ibid.,  p.  259. 

4  Milne,  p.  137.     In  1812  only  mathematicians  were  excepted  from  the  edict  of  banishment 
against  Christians. 

6  Zeitsch.  d.  D.  M.  G.  I.  1 19.  6  Chin.  Rebellions,  p.  67. 


55$  SAGES. 

hymns,  he  says,  are  "  simply  forms  of  veneration."  l  The 
Tai-pings  made  no  difference  between  days,  denied  the 
Trinity,  set  up  no  claim  to  miraculous  powers,  and  bap- 
tized themselves  without  a  priesthood.2 

So  general  is  this  education  that  it  is  said  all  the  learned 
belong  to  the  Yu-kiao  (rationalist)  school.  They  invariably 
demand  the  natural  law  and  human  principle  on  which  a 
belief  is  founded.  Their  respect  for  human  nature  is  shown 
in  the  exalted  meaning  given  to  the  wordjt/i  (man) ;  which, 
like  our  word  "  humanity,"  transcends  all  other  words  and 
comprehends  all  valid  beliefs.3  It  is  purely  as  a  man  that 
Confucius  in  his  temple-rites  is  called  the  pivot  of  knowl- 
edge and  the  Master  of  Ages  ;  nor  can  one  be  supposed  to 
have  possessed' miraculous  powers,  who,  after  exalting  the 
ancient  kings  as  perfect  models,  declared  that  all  men  may 
become  Yaos  and  Shuns. 

The  strong  realism,  which  refers  all  things  to  the  tests 
Noexter-  °f  human  thought  and  character,  becomes  an 
naiGod.  equally  strong  belief  in  the  inherence  of  law  and 
the  eternity  of  the  world.  Both  the  one  and  the  other  are 
inconsistent  with  the  conception  of  Divine  volitions  acting 
on  the  cosmos  from  without,  or  proceeding  to  its  creation 
at  a  given  time.  The  nature  of  things  itself  is  order, 
wisdom,  benignity  ;  and  until  these  are  perceived  in  the 
cosmical  and  human  spheres,  it  is  not  allowed  that  these 
spheres  are  rightly  apprehended.  The  Chinese  thus  avoid 
that  rock  on  which  monotheism  splits,  —  the  attempt  at 
conceiving  two  infinities,  God  and  his  world  ;  and  escapes 
the  insoluble  problem  of  reconciling  evil  with  the  definite 
purposes  of  a  supremely  good  but  anthropomorphic  God.4 
Having  therefore  no  word  properly  answering  to  the 

1  Am.  Or.  Journ.,  October,  1869. 

2  Macfarlane,  Appendix  ;  Meadows,  pp.  425,  427. 
8  See  Chin.  Repos.,  July,  1846. 

4  It  will  hereafter  be  shown  that  the  old  classics,  in  their  description  of  Shang-te,  do  not 
materially  contradict  this  general  statement  of  Chinese  tendencies. 


RATIONALISM.  559 

"Christian  God,"  they  are  the  object  of  an  interminable 
dispute  among  Scripture  translators  how  to  put  this  con- 
ception into  their  unsuitable  forms  of  speech,  resulting 
for  the  most  part  in  their  being  consigned  to  the  limbo  of 
"atheism."1 

This  reference  of  religion  to  human  faculty,  as  the  ulti- 
mate tribunal,  is  the  natural  result  to  which  pro-  The  human 
longed  culture  has  led  every  positive  faith,  marking  faculties 
its  transition  to  a  larger  form  of  experience.    When  ^J^te6 
Buddhism  and  Christianity  issue  in  putting  a  man  ground  of 
in  place  of  God  ;  when   Greek  faith  ends    in   the  a 


Socratic  creed  that  man  is  the  one  proper  object  of  resultof 
human  study  ;  2  when  Judaism  interprets  its  Jeho- 
vah by  the  sentences  of  the  Rabbins,  and  Mohammedanism 
its  Allah  by  the  mystical  speculations  of  the  free-thinking 
Sufis,  —  these  phases  of  belief  are  foreshadowings  of  an 
inevitable  conviction,  that  all  truth  which  comes  to  man 
comes  by  the  operation  of  his  faculties  under  their  own 
laws.  They  are  foregleams  of  three  grand  certainties  :  the 
first,  of  philosophy,  that  the  analysis  of  these  faculties  is 
the  ground  of  knowledge  ;  the  next,  of  science,  that  the 
universe  must  be  to  man  according  as  he  perceives  it  ;  and 
the  last,  of  religion,  that  what  man  sees  and  knows  and 
loves,  that  he  '  inwardly  is.  When  Confucius  and  Chu-hi 
refuse  to  look  outside  the  universe  for  a  Being  unrelated  to 
human  reason  ;  when  they  fill  heaven  and  earth  with  these 
human  relations  by  which  their  race  has  lived  for  three 
thousand  years,  —  they  seem  to  me  singularly  prescient, 
with  all  their  temperamental  defects,  of  the  truth  to  which 
thought  is  pointing  in  our  day.  In  their  somewhat  crude 
naturalism,  in  their  silence  or  reserve  as  to  matters  on 
which  the  familiar  laws  of  life  afford  no  solution,  there  is 
the  germ  of  a  true  reconciliation  of  science  and  faith. 

1  See,  further  on,  chapter  on  Chinese  Theism. 

2  Xenophon's  Memorabilia,  I.  i. 


560  SAGES. 

In   accordance  with    this    religion  of   humanity,  honors 
TheReiig-  are  pa^  to  Confucius  and  other  sages,  as  in  the 

- 

school  of  Comte  to  the  great  men  of  all  times. 


Honors  to    The  cuit  i§     £   a  pubiic   nature,  and    the  official 

benefac- 

tors. hymns,  libations,  and  incense  represent  national 
gratitude  for  universal  gifts.  Prostration  before  the  tablet 
is  the  symbolic  act  of  the  State,  the  homage  of  politics  to 
the  ethical  and  literary  ideal.  Thus  for  the  worship  of  an 
external  creator,  the  Mongolian  in  China  and  Japan  substi- 
tutes grateful  recognition  of  the  inherence  of  character 
after  death  in  the  body  and  substance  of  the  race.  The 
principle  is  the  same,  whether  in  the  ancestral  rites  to  be 
performed  "  as  if  the  parents  were  present,"  1  or  in  those 
other  rites  in  honor  of  spirits  of  the  land  and  grain,  and  of 
other  elemental  powers  in  the  manifold  combinations  of  the 
"  two  principles."  All  represent  devotion  to  human  duties, 
interests,  and  hopes  ;  and  the  relations  with  divine  powers 
are  all  grounded  in  these. 

Thus  when  Mencius  says,  "  If,  after  due  sacrifices,  there 
Supersti-  are  yet  destructive  rains  and  droughts,  the  altars  of 
tions  con-  ^Q  Spirits  of  the  land  are  changed  and  others  set 

trary  to  the 

national  up,  '  he  is  illustrating  the  truth  that  these  guardian 
culture.  spirits  and  places  are  for  the  people's  sake,  not  the 
people  for  theirs.2  So  the  apparent  concessions  of  the 
State  to  popular  superstitions  must  be  regarded  as  nothing 
more  than  political  expedients  for  the  benefit  of  a  philosophy 
of  government  which  really  lies  deeper  in  the  national  mind 
than  the  delusions  themselves.  The  Canton  authorities  in 
1830  offered  a  reward  to  any  exorcist  who  would  bring  rain. 
The  trial  was  made  by  a  priest  of  Fo,  but  one  of  any  other  reli- 
gion would  have  been  as  acceptable  ;  and  it  is  not  probable 
that  these  Chinese  Sadducees,  trained  in  the  school  of  Con- 
fucius, expected  success  from  any.  Scarth  tells  us  that 
in  1841  the  mandarins  took  Buddhist  images  and  exposed 

1  Confucius.  2  Mencius,  VII.,  Pt.  ii.  14.     See  Legge  on  the  passage. 


RATIONALISM.  561 

them  to  the  rain,  to  see  how  they  liked  it.1  "  Will  you  give 
a  god  a  body  of  molten  gold,  and  build  him  a  house  to  live 
in  ?  "  asks  the  "  Sacred  Edict."  "  As  soon  as  people  begin 
to  believe  in  monsters,  devils,  calling  for  wind,  commanding 
rain,  their  heart  and  morals  are  destroyed."  "  Even  the 
Ticn-cJin  (Christians),  who  talk  of  things  without  substance, 
have  a  religion  that  is  unsound." 

In  fact  the  reference  of  every  thing  to  the  interests  of  a 
regulated  government  utterly  forbids  the  idea  of  Divine  in- 
terference from  without  in  the  order  of  nature  and  society. 
And  hence  no  form  of  official  remonstrance  has  been  more 
frequent  than  the  charge  against  Buddhist  and  Tao-sse 
superstitions  of  imperilling  social  order.  Even  these,  as 
the  Chinese  conceive  them,  rest  on  a  kind  of  rationalism. 
No  people  are  more  addicted  to  divination  ;  and  this  rests 
mainly  on  the  diagrams  of  the  Y-king,  constructed  according 
to  numerical  rules,  representing  natural  relations  and  laws. 
The  popular  terrors  at  eclipses  are  rebuked  by  the  calm 
calculations  of  the  "  Mathematical  Board,"  registering  the 
phenomena  as  effects  of  law.  Sorceries,  divinations,  and 
spirit-intercourse,  and  the  universal  belief  in  Fung-shui 
(occult  powers  in  Nature),  are  all  quite  distinct  from  super- 
naturalism. 

Even  the  popular  mythology  indicates  this  inseparableness 
of  the  fancy  from  orderly  familiar  law.  Pwan-ku,  Their  reia- 
the  world-maker  of  the  Tao-sse  faith,  is  himself  a  tlon  to. 

natural 

part  of  the  world  he  makes  :  this  primal  man  is  a  law. 
kind  of  human  ape,  has  horns  and  protruding  teeth,  and 
wears  an  apron  of  leaves,  while  he  hammers  the  rocks  into 
shape,  and  works  out  the  dragon  and  tortoise.  Yet  this 
Darwinian  creature  is  a  type  of  morality.  He  is  humanly 
wise,  just,  rational,  useful  ;  he  teaches  navigation,  opens 
the  mountains,  and  is  a  good  Chinese  producer.  His 
world-making  is  evolution  from  chaotic  matter  through  the 

i  De  Mas,  p.  86. 
36 


$62  SAGES. 

inherence  of  the  Yin  and  Yang.  Around  this  human  demi- 
urge are  gathered  marvellous  ideal  creatures  which 'com- 
bine the  bestial  and  human  elements.1  His  work  is  slow, 
orderly,  secular,  like  natural  growth.  This  is  a  type  of 
Chinese  conceptions.  Creation  from  without  cannot  ac- 
count for  the  .universe.  Builder  and  work  are  one  ;  the 
ideal  of  human  uses  is  therein,  from  everlasting  to  everlast- 
ing ;  and  the  special  form  under  which  the  world  appears 
to  us  is  but  one  embodiment  or  working  out  of  its  inherent 
humanity.  At  home  in  the  world,  which  is  in  the  image  of 
his  own  nature,  man  reads  its  activities  as  so  much  human 
life :  a  concreteness  which  does  not  belong  to  Chinese 
faith  only,  but  is  found  in  very  different  races.  The  Edda 
builds  the  world  out  of  the  different  members  of  the  giant 
Ymir,  human  expression  of  the  elementary  frost  and  fire  ; 
as  the  Tao-sse  shape  it  out  of  the  fragments  of  Pwan-ku,  the 
primal  man.2 

The  current  magic  of  most  rude  races  is  a  claim  to  com- 
mand genii  and  spirits,  rather  than  a  subjection  to  them. 
In  this  respect,  fetichism  itself  is  a  germ  of  philosophy. 
Chinese  wonder-working  is  mainly  of  this  character,  and 
well  illustrated  by  the  legend  of  two  brothers  who  had 
the  gift  of  summoning  all  spirits  to  judgment  on  a  moun- 
tain, and  punishing  those  who  had  shown  evil  will  to 
man.3 

The  Hakkas,  an  interesting  native  tribe,  as  described  by 
Eitel,  also  exhibit  this  germinant  rationalism.  They  repel 
metempsychosis  and  the  Buddhist  hells,  assert  the  annihi- 
lation of  the  wicked  instead  of  their  endless  punishment, 
and  freely  criticise  the  popular  deities.4 

Rationalistic  habits  of  thought  are  suggested  by  such 
Chinese  proverbs  as  these  : 5  — 

1  So  the  Ainos,  indigenous  race  of  Japan,  trace  their  origin  to  bears. 

8  See  Mayers,  p.  174  ;  Carre,  I.  474  ;  Courcy,  p.  325. 

8  Mayers,  Manual,  220.  *  Notes  and  Queries,  Vol.  I.,  No.  r. 

0  Collections  by  Davis,  Scarborough,  Doolittle,  and  others  ;  also  "  Sacred  Edict." 


RATIONALISM.  563 

Doing  one's  home  duties,  what  need  of  going  afar  to  burn  incense  ? 

In  making  a  candle  we  seek  for  light :  in  reading  a  book   Rat;0n- 
we  seek  for  reason.  aiistic 

How  can  we  suit  other  men's  ideas  ?    Let  me  only  see  that  Proverbs- 
I  shame  not  my  own  heart. 

Who  knows  himself  and  knows  others,  will  triumph  whenever  he 
contends. 

Many  seek  to  know  their  fortunes  by  divination  :  to  reproach  others 
is  the  true  ill-fortune  ;  to  be  reproached  by  them  is  the  good. 

Every  effect  has  its  cause.  Man  ascends  by  nature,  as  water  de- 
scends. You  may  find  the  measure  of  heaven  and  earth,  but  not  of 
mind.  An  enlightened  mind  is  like  heaven  ;  a  darkened  one  like  hell. 
Who  knows  himself  knows  others,  for  hearts  are  alike.  All  the  myriad 
gods  are  one  God.  Idolatrous  superstitions  are  man's  device.  Every 
man  reaps  as  he  tills.  Who  lay  up  goodness  have  gladness  ;  who  lay 
up  evil,  sadness.  The  upright  fear  no  thunderbolts.  Would  you  know 
what  you  were,  see  what  you  are  ;  would  you  know  what  you  will  be, 
see  what  you  do.  Seek  not  happiness  outside  your  sphere  of  duty  ;  do 
nothing  beyond  the  bounds  of  reason :  do  your  own  work  and  rest 
content. 

If  one  be  not  enlightened  within,  what  lamp  shall  give  him  light: 
if  his  purpose  is  evil,  what  prayers  shall  he  repeat  ?  The  evidence  of 
others  is  not  comparable  to  personal  experience  ;  nor  is  "  I  heard  "  so 
good  as  "  I  saw."  If  one  be  not  perfect  in  human  virtue,  how  shall  he 

reach  immortal  perfection  ? 

i 

Traceable  through  all  classes,  and  through  the  gradations 
of  instinct,  fancy,  and  mature  culture,  this  absence  Results  of 
of  a  supernaturalistic  motive  explains  many  things  J^Jj™**^ 
in  Chinese  institutions.  It  forbids  the  existence  of  a  naturalism, 
priestly  caste  ;  and,  among  true  Confucians,  of  any  priest- 
hood whatever.  There  are  paid  officials  who  aid  in  the 
performance  of  religious  rites,  but  the  function  involves  no 
privileges  nor  special  honor.  Properly  speaking,  the  civili- 
zation is  secular  ;  not  for  want  of  religion,  but  from  the 
necessity  of  recognizing  ideas  in  their  positive  working 
uses,  instead  of  organizing  a  special  class  for  guarding  and 
transmitting  their  speculative  or  contemplative  contents. 

Thus  is  avoided  the  intolerance  involved  in  a  system  of 


564  SAGES. 

ecclesiastical  rule.  Where  the  worth  of  a  belief  is  tested 
by  its  working  capacity  for  general  service,  there  can  be  no 
exclusiveness  on  merely  theoretic  or  dogmatic  grounds. 
Where  the  national  consciousness  recognizes  no  outward 
Divine  caprice  manipulating  the  universe  of  laws,  there  can 
be  no  ground  for  assuming  a  human  right  to  impose  a 
special  creed  by  force  of  will.  Thus  the  Chinese  perceive 
no  reason  for  restraining  opinions  but  their  having  inter- 
fered with  the  permanent  political  order.  The  same  lati- 
tudinarian  spirit  directed  the  policy  of  Genghis  Khan,  of 
Timour,  and  other  great  Mongol  chieftains.1  The  aim  of 
these  Asiatic  conquerors  to  establish  a  universal  empire 
dwarfed  all  those  differences  of  theoretic  belief  over  which 
they  loved  to  play  the  impartial  patron.  This  indifferentism 
as  to  opinion,  combined  with  the  demand  for  ethical  and 
political  conformity,  is  well  illustrated  in  Key-ing's  Edict  of 
Toleration,  issued  in  i845.2  It  is  not  a  mere  lack  of  specu- 
lative interest,  but  a  positive  zeal  for  being  and  doing.  The 
State  is  the  central  spring  of  Chinese  life,  and  surfers  no 
intrusion  of  higher  sanctions  than  those  itself  recognizes. 
It  alone  does  not  take  the  name  kiao,  which  signifies 
sect.3 

This  equality  of  the  creeds  is  a  result  of  instinct  and 
principle  combined,  and  therefore  consequent  and  complete ; 
while  the*  toleration  reached  by  Christian  sects  has  been 
for  the  most  part  a  limited  half-way  concession  to  reason 
against  the  instincts  of  their  faith.  Even  the  enlightened 
Utopians  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  —  who  are  pure  rationalists, 
and  hold  it  wrong  to  persecute  any  for  his  religious  belief, 
because  "  no  one  can  make  himself  believe  any  thing  he 
pleases,"  —  deprive  unbelievers  in  God  and  a  future  life 
of  all  employment  in  public  trusts,  "  as  men  of  base  and 
sordid  minds." 

1  See  Hue's  Christianity  in  China,  I.  274-283,  306.     Marco  Polo,  B.  II.  ch..  ii. 
s  Williams,  II.  370.  s  Williams,  II.  233. 


RATIONALISM.  565 

The  rationalistic  element  is  conspicuous  in  Chinese  lit- 
erature, and  may  be  called  the  crown  of  a  national  Rational. 
culture,  as  pure  ethically  as  it  is  socially  humane,   isminiit- 
It  appears  in  the  vast  number  of  critical  analyses, 
and  the  ample  discussion  of  all  traditions  and  classical 
works.1     A  certain  disputatiousness  betrays  the  irritability 
of  reasoning  faculties  kept  in  constant  exercise  on  the  de- 
tails of  knowledge.     There  is  really  no  limit  to  the  freedom 
of  denial  here,  except  that  sense  of  continuity  in  the  life  of 
literature,  which  in  China  is  a  form  of  religion.     Chu-hi's 
analysis  of  the  Shu-king  shows  how  far  rational  speculation 
can  be  carried  within  these  limits.    Some  of  his  canons  are 
worth  quoting  :  — 

Inquire  into  thyself  before  thou  dost  investigate  others  ;  else  thy 
spirit  will  be  like  an  unbridled  horse,  that  roams  about  aimlessly  and 
is  lost. 

The  deeper  the  mind  penetrates,  the  clearer  it  becomes  ;  the  more 
it  spreads  itself  out  on  the  surface,  the  more  it  is  confused. 

Let  the  writer's  thought  so  ripen  in  thee,  that  it  becomes  as  it  were 
thy  own  thought. 

For  inability  to  comprehend  and  retain  the  import  of  a  book,  I  know 
but  one  remedy  :  read  less,  and  think  more  of  what  thou  hast  read. 
Act  towards  a  difficult  work  as  a  brave  general  who  leaves  his  foe  no 
rest  till  he  has  overthrown  him.2 

In  the  long  process  of  atomization  from  which  the  most 
venerated  books  have  not  been  exempt,  all  assump-  T 

Free  cnti- 

tions  have  been  denied,  all  beliefs  tracked  to  their  dsm  and 
elements  and  run  out  to  their  extremes.     Pan-kou  d 
describes  the  license  of    his  time  in  these  respects  with 
great  sorrow,  as   proofs  of  its  degeneracy.     Over  against 
Confucius,  who  reverently  weighed  circumstances,  distinc- 
tions and  degrees  in  human  relations,  rose  the  "  Universal 
Love "  principle  of  Mih,  which  was   interpreted  as  com- 
munism.   Fuh-kia's  school  set  itself  against  all  amelioration 
of  human  conditions.     Seun  opposed  the  Mencian  doctrine 

1  See  Wylie's  Chinese  Lit.,  pp.  124-144.  *  Schott,  Chines.  Lift.,  p.  54. 


566  SAGES. 

of  the  excellence  of  human  nature,  asserting  that  man  could 
become  bad  as  easily  as  good.  Pessimism  is  represented 
in  Yang-choo.  At  the  opposite  pole  from  Confucian  prac- 
ticality is  the  rare  speculative  radicalism  of  Chu-hi.  Lao- 
tse's  mystical  protest  showed  that  even  the  sacred  faith  in 
institutions  and  social  solidarity  brought  its  reaction.  One 
celebrated  scholar  is  mentioned  who  actually  rejected  the 
diagrams  of  Fo-hi  and  the  categories  of  the  "  Great  Plan  " 
of  the  Shu-king. 

All  the  educational  classics  are  humanitarian,  a  culture 
The  text-  based  on  positive  physical  and  mental  laws.  The 
books  Siao-hiao  describes  to  the  young  the  functions 
naturalistic.  ^^  devolve  on  them  in  the  great  natural  rela- 
tions, illustrating  these  by  ideal  instances  from  history,  and 
by  ethical  precepts.  The  Ta-hio  teaches  that  the  founda- 
tions of  the  State  are  in  personal  character,  and  that  office 
belongs  to  capacity.  The  "  Millenary  Classic "  is  to  the 
same  effect  with  the  Siao-hiao.  The  Confucian  Books 
represent  the  three  grand  forces,  Heaven,  Earth,  and  Man, 
as  mutually  penetrative,  while  self-perfection  is  the  chief 
duty  and  sum  of  disciplines.  "  Filial  Piety,"  says  the  "  Sa- 
cred Edict,"  "  is  founded  on  the  unalterable  law  of  Heaven, 
the  correspondent  processes  of  Earth,  and  the  common 
obligations  of  all  people  ; "  all  of  which  involves  the  duty 
of  rightly  caring  for  the  body  and  mind.  Laotse's  Tao 
(Way  of  Reason)  is  the  common  term  of  all  the  schools,  so 
applied  as  to  designate  an  eternal  wisdom  to  which  all  must 
appeal.  Chu-hi  says,  "  Reason  is  the  celestial  principle 
innate  in  man."  Mencius  vindicates  the  human  faculties  ; 
and  Chinese  metaphysics  reaches  its  highest  point  in  the 
identity  of  the  rational  principle  in  man  (Li)  with  the  ul- 
timate ground  of  the  universe  (Tai-ki),  the  one  substance 
of  its  dual  law. 

The  defect  of  Chinese  rationalism  as  a  whole,  in  the 
light  of  modern  philosophy,  is  obvious.  It  consists, 


RATIONALISM.  $6? 

not  in  that  inaptness  at  positing  an  actual  God  outside  the 
cosmos,  which  Christians  have  usually  called  "  athe-  Phiiosoph- 

.   .  .        ical  defect 

ism,  but  which  is  entirely  in  accordance  with  spir-  not  atheism 
itual  pantheism,  the  highest  form  of  theism,  —  but  butover 

concrete- 
ill  the  want  of  sustained  contemplative  power.     It  ness. 

fails  to  hold  idea  as  thought,  apart  from  concrete  embodi- 
ment, with  sufficient  grasp  to  trace  its  functions  in  their  real 
integrity  through  the  spheres  of  imagination  and  specu- 
lative research.  No  lack  of  religious  sentiment  and  con- 
viction is  implied :  these  are  none  the  less  real  because 
their  object  is  not  externally  denned.  As  a  constitutional 
habit  of  mind,  its  analogue  will  be  found  in  concrete  tenden- 
cies to  which  Western  civilization  is  becoming  more  and 
more  exposed  through  its  wealth  of  material  details,  and 
its  intense  passion  for  organization  and  visible  uses.  Its 
faults,  both  in  the  East  and  West,  are  to  be  met,  not  by  infu- 
sion of  a  theology  contrary  to  the  best  perceptions  of  the 
time,  but  by  the  study  of  pure  thought,  of  abstract  law,  of 
mathematical  relations,  as  well  as  by  education  of  the 
aesthetic  nature,  and  of  the  sense  of  ideal  freedom. 

For  these,  apart  from  defects  of  temperament,  the  Chinese 
mind  affords  an  opening  through  its  strong  realism,  Relation  of 
disposed   to    hold  all    ideal  experiences  as  validly  Chinese 
objective  fact,  and  through  the  rational  and  human  mindtothe 
basis  on  which  it  treats  all  opinions,  freely  examin-  intellectual 

...  .  wants  of 

mg  their  positive  value.     Shall  not  the  two  civili-  the  west- 
zations,  brought  into  close  practical  relations,  ob-  ernworld- 
serve  their  common  need  of  ideal  and  contemplative  inter- 
ests, and   incite  each  other  to  supply  defects  so   obvious 
in  each,  when  seen  from  a  standpoint  without  itself  ? 

The  influence  of  Chinese  ideas  seems  to  have  had  large 
part  in  shaping  the  present  wide-spread  rationalism  influence 
of  the  Japanese.     The  official  and  upper  classes  in  on  Japan- 
Japan  are  altogether  secular  in  their  philosophy.     The  wor- 
ship of  images  has  not  engrafted  itself,  even  in  Buddhism, 


568  SAGES. 

on  the  original  spirit  cultus  of  the  natives.  "  Young  Japan  " 
above  all  things  welcomes  scepticism,  and  relegates  the 
kami  gods,  as  respects  supernatural  claims,  to  the  region  of 
primitive  superstition.  Even  the  Buddhists  show  "remark- 
able philosophical  instinct  and  rationally  guided  liberty  of 
thought."  Mr.  Seward  reports  that  "  the  Japanese,  under 
the  influence  of  Confucius,  have  become  a  nation  of  doubt- 
ers "  (in  the  Christian  sense).1 

But  a  noble  significance  is  already  to  be  recognized  in 
the  mental  attitude  and  method  we  are  now  to  study. 
Human  reason,  with  the  Chinese,  substitutes  the  independ- 
ence of  morality  for  the  "  authority  of  revelation."  Naturally 
it  has  reached  the  most  complete  and  consistent  system  of 
ethics  ever  affirmed  by  any  race.  'Tis  as  far  from  truth  as 
possible  that  self-interest  is  the  basis  of  this  system. 
Neither  hope  of  reward  nor  fear  of  penalty  is  conceived  as 
its  ultimate  sanction.  The  supreme  validity  for  man  is  in 
his  own  nature  and  the  cosmical  laws.  Behind  the  State 
stand  justice-and  humanity  as  its  only  purification.  Behind 
these  the  eternal  order  of  the  world,  whereof  the  teacher  and 
the  type  are  the  rational  constitution  of  the  soul.  Deeper 
than  all,  the  universe  is  essentially  right ;  its  laws  mean  well 
by  man.  Heaven,  in  the  sense  of  its  essential  wisdom,  jus- 
tice, and  benignity  (when  rightly  interpreted  as  a  whole),  is 
all-seeing,  all-good ;  and  morality  is  the  harmony  of  man 
with  himself,  and  thereby  with  Heaven. 

1  Hubner,  p.  287;  De  Rosny  in  Congr.d,  Orientalistes^  1873;  Seward's  Travels^  p.  102. 


II. 


CONFUCIUS. 


CONFUCIUS. 


/TPHE  extreme  obscurity  in  which  the  lives  ot  all  reputed 

-*-  founders    of    positive  faiths  are  involved  sug-  Data  for 
gests  the  impression  that  this  favoring  screen  has  knowled.se 

1  concerning 

been  one  of  the  conditions  of  their  overshadowing  Confucius. 
fame.  Their  biographies  betray  the  free  play  of  popular 
imagination  around  a  vague  and  shifting  centre,  plastic  to 
the  worshipper's  desire.  In  the  case  of  Confucius,  there  is 
an  explicitness  in  the  details  which  may  seem  to  testify 
to  their  historical  truth.  On  the  other  hand,  the  passion 
for  details  is  a  trait  of  the  Chinese,  and  enlists  fancy  as 
well  as  conscience  in  its  service ;  so  that  it  is  only  to  docu- 
ments really  original  that  such  favor  is  due.  And  for  these 
we  have  additional  guarantee  in  the  habit  of  committing 
every  thing  concerning  persons  and  events  to  written  form. 
Such  original  sources  for  the  biography  of  Confucius  are, 
however,  very  limited.  While  later  writers  have  ascribed 
to  him  a  large  body  of  ethical  wisdom,  with  something  of  the 
license  with  which  the  Jews  employed  the  name  of  Solomon 
and  the  early  Christians  that  of  Jesus,  it  is  undoubtedly  to 
the  Lun-yu  (Analects)  that  we  must  look  for  the  most 
trustworthy  record  of  his  life  and  conversation.1  It  is  far 

1  The  Li-ki,  which  purports  to  record  these  conversations,  is  a  compilation  made  five  or 
six  hundred  years  after  his  death.  The  Isse  gives  only  fragments  about  his  later  years.  Amyot's 
biography  is  of  little  repute-  The  commentary  to  the  Y-king,  ascribed  to  Confucius,  is  not 
believed  to  be  genuine.  His  "  Spring  and  Autumn  Classic "  has  not  a  single  reference  to 
himself.  The  Kia-yu  (analyzed  by  Plath)  is  hardly  pure  history.  The  Sse-kioi  Sse-ma-thsian 
(very  full)  is  of  more  authority.  Plath,  after  extended  research  into  the  Li-ki  and  Kia-yut 
thinks  their  "  ritualistic  sayings  cannot  be  wholly  rejected,  however  it  be  with  the  philoso- 
phemes  in  other  works."  See  his  articles  on  the  sources  of  the  Life  of  Confucius.  {Bay.  A  kad. 
d.  Wissensch.  XII.  XIII.)  Dr.  Legge  is  more  sceptical.  The  French  missionaries  must  be 
used  with  caution.  Faber's  (German)  Bibliography  of  the  subject  is  of  great  value,  but  the 
works  mentioned  are  for  the  most  part  inaccessible. 


572  SAGES. 

more  serviceable  than  either  of  the  other  classics  which 
bear  his  name.1  Of  its  origin,  Pan-kou  tells  us  that  every 
disciple  carried  about  tablets  for  recording  the  teacher's 
words,  and  that  after  his  death  they  were  brought  together 
and  put  in  order.  Dr.  Legge  sees  indications  of  later 
influence  in  certain  personal  characterizations  of  disciples 
To  an  outside  student,  however,  the  book  bears  the  most 
obvious  marks  of  just  such,  a  hurried  process  of  compilation 
from  notes  as  Pan-kou  describes. 2  It  is  rambling  and 
without  chronological  order,  though  with  here  and  there  a 
dim  kind  of  unity  in  certain  sections.3 

The  social  disintegration  of  the  time  was  unfavorable  to 
The  times,  the  transmission,  or  even  the  formation,  of  correct 
fit*  cLis-  records-  The  Imperial  Government  was  a  cipher, 
age,  and  national  records  were  at  the  mercy  of  every 
insanity  of  the  hour.  Any  thing  like  serious  critical 
records.  study  must  have  been  exceedingly  difficult  at  such 
a  time.  The  invincible  habit  of  social  order  permitted, 
even  then,  the  activity  of  such  a  teacher  as  Confucius 
migrating  from  court  to  court  with  his  policy  of  peace, 
justice,  and  political  unity.  But  though  surrounded  by 
sincere  disciples,  and  sustained  by  an  unsurpassed  faith  in 
human  nature,  he  spoke,  on  the  whole,  to  deaf  ears  ;  and 
his  efforts  to  effect  a  political  reformation  failed  as  utterly 
as  those  of  Jesus  to  enforce  the  opposite  doctrine,  that  the 
politico-social  world  in  his  day  was  not  worth  saving  at  all. 
In  one  petty  State  only  were  the  institutions  he  urged  still 

1  The  Ta-hio,  though  Confucian  in  quality,  is  largely  from  an  unknown  author,  and  con- 
tains but  seven  short  paragraphs  ascribed  to  his  hand.     It  is  a  philosophical  treatise,  and 
formed  a  portion  of  the  Li-ki.     Tsze-Tsze,  author  of  the  Chung-yung,   was  grandson  of  Con- 
fucius, and  could  scarcely  have  failed  to  be  conversant  with  him  after  coming  to  manhood' 
As  an  account  of  Confucian  beliefs,  this  work  deserves  great  respect ;  but  it  tells  us  very  little 
of  his  life,  while  it  is  of  course  difficult  to  separate  the  doctrine  ascribed  to  the  teacher  from  the 
reporter's  personal  opinions. 

2  See  close  of  B.  IX. 

3  For  example:  B.  I.  contains  much  about  the  way  to  learn  ;  B.  III.  about  ceremonies  and 
music;  B.  V.  about  the  qualities  of  persons ;  B.  X.  about  Confucius's  personal  habits;  B.  XIII. 
about  government ;  B.  XIV.  about  official  relations. 


CONFUCIUS.  573 

extant,  in  an  imperfect  form.  His  preference  for  the  early 
Tcheou  statutes  stood  but  small  chance  of  favor  from  the 
ambitious  chiefs  who  would  not  have  known  the  Great 
Duke,  had  he  risen  from  the  dead  to  rebuke  the  degenerate 
dynasty  to  whose  better  days  he  had  given,  according  to 
Confucius,  noble  laws.  Historical  documents  in  such  times 
must  have  been  sadly  neglected  ; 1  and  the  days  that  fol- 
lowed were  even  more  destructive.  After  the  civil  wars 
followed  the  calamities  of  the  T'sin,  when  the  Confucian 
teachers  were  massacred  and  their  books  burned.  Even 
after  the  reparation  of  this  ruin  by  the  Han,  "  the  rites 
could  not  be  performed  correctly  (140-87  B.C.)  for  want  of 
portions  of  the  ancient  tablets."  2 

Under  these  circumstances,  which  remind  us  of  the  way 
in  which  the  New  Testament  biographies  had  to  grow  up 
during  and  after  the  Jewish  war,  it  is  hardly  to  be  expected 
that  any  other  than  fragmentary  records  of  a  wandering 
political  and  philosophical  teacher  should  have  been  pre- 
served. No  one  wrote  the  Life  of  Confucius  in  detail,  and 
we  must  piece  bits  of  information  together  to  learn  where 
he  journeyed,  whom  he  knew  and  loved,  and  what  he  did. 
Doubtless  his  ideas  are  correctly  given  and  developed  by 
his  disciples,  since  their  account  is  perfectly  consistent  in 
its  entire  spirit  and  its  separate  details.  Of  these  none 
deserves  more  confidence  than  Mencius,  whose  allusions 
are  frequent. 

As  already  observed,  the  scanty  materials  thus  described 
are  analogous  to  those  to  which  we  are  confined  in   similar 
the   case   of  every  reputed   founder  of  a  positive  °     ls"*yo{ 
faith.    The  fact  points  to  a  general  law.    The  lives  every 
of  these   men,   however  admirable,  received   little  o{°ur 
public   regard   in  their  own   times.     The    circum-  Hgion." 
stances  which  afterwards  drew   around   them   the  Lmtbe 
faith  of  a  generation  or  a  race  were  part  of  the  fact- 

1  See  Pauthier's  quotations,  Jour.  As.,  1868,  p.  388.  2  Ibid.,  Oct.,  1867. 


574  SAGES. 

great  current  of  progress,  which  used  names  and  persons 
with  less  regard  to  what  they  really  stood  for,  than  to  what 
might  be  made  out  of  them  by  those  strangely  complex 
forces  which  create  the  steps  of  humanity.  If  an  age 
wants  a  personal  centre  of  reverence,  the  very  obscurity 
which  has  covered  an  individual  may,  by  protecting  his 
life  from  investigation,  furnish  a  strong  element  of  natural 
selection  for  such  a  purpose.  The  names  of  the  really 
grandest  characters  in  history  may  well  have  perished  from 
the  knowledge  of  mankind,  while  their  influence  is  a  latent 
power  that  could  not  fail.  This  is  part  of  the  tragedy  of 
life,  and  must  be  accepted,  that  the  great  lesson  of  disin- 
terested virtue  may  be  followed  to  the  end. 

There  are  differences  in  races  as  to  this  relation  between 
Real  value  the  imagination  and  the  historic  sense.  In  the 
cVnfudan  case  °^  Confucius,  there  would  be  the  strongest 
records.  tendency  to  present  every  report  of  his  doctrine 
in  some  concrete  personal  relation.  It  would  be  in  such 
forms  as  an  answer  to  questions,  a  counsel  to  princes,  an 
admonition  or  criticism  of  disciples,  a  way  of  dealing  with 
some  personal  emergency.  These  frameworks  are  always 
given  in  the  Lun-yu.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  their  defi- 
niteness  and  sobriety  almost  guarantee  their  truth.  But 
whether  in  detail  accurate  or  not,  the  value  of  the  record 
is  none  the  less  as  testimony  to  ideas  that  were  seeking 
expression  in  the  times,  giving  birth  to  it  and  to  him  ;  and 
were  destined  to  a  mighty  development  when  that  wild 
ferment  was  over. 

The  world's  saviours  are  the  movements  of  humanity 
ideas,  not  itself  \  not  so  much  individuals  as  ideas ;  public 
individu-  ancj  private  necessities  of  growth ;  the  internal 

als,the  •  £  ,  - 

world's  genius  of  a  people  or  an  age  asserting  its  sway 
"saviours."  an(]  shaping  private  wills,  unconscious  of  its  mas- 
tery, to  ends  beyond  themselves.  The  names  that  come  to 
stand  for  vast  movements  are  not  necessarily  those  of  the 


CONFUCIUS.  575 

most  efficient  workers  therein,  but  symbols  whose  selec- 
tion is  itself  a  history  of  ideal  constructions,  requiring  the 
closest  study  of  historical  facts  and  laws.  No  individual 
life  deserves  the  permanent  title  of  Headship  to  the  all- 
mastering  truths  which  ages  recognize  as  those  they  were 
seeking.  The  organized  belief  sought  a  centre  in  s'ome 
historic  name,  which  gradually  acquired  royal  rights  and 
cumulative  prestige.  The  pride  of  an  organized  religion 
gives  a  spurious  repute  to  records  held  symbolic  of  this 
official  meaning  (the  symbols  of  a  symbol),  till  the  coming 
of  a  higher  freedom  proves  that  the  ideal  they  served  for 
has  changed.  The  end  must  be,  that  at  last  the  truth  that 
science  and  liberty,  the  daily  hopes  and  familiar  blessings 
of  Nature,  the  open  and  secret  tides  of  civilization  are  the 
homestead  of  natural  religion  ceases  to  be  classed  as  Con- 
fucianism, Christianity,  or  Judaism,  or  to  wear  any  nar- 
rower name  than  Universal  Religion  ;  and  the  ethics  that 
all  must  confess  are  referred  to  the  Moral  Order  of  the 
Universe,  revealed  in  the  nature  of  the  Soul. 

Hut  I  hasten  to  assert  also,  under  these  limitations,  the 
value  of  personal  life  through  whatever  it  has  done 
in  the  line  of  these  deeper  currents,  whether  truly  personal 
reported  or  not.     Historical  uncertainty  does  not  lnfluence- 
alter  the  power  of   character,  nor  the  absolute  precision 
with  which  every  great  thought  or  act  tells  upon  its  time. 
Nor  is  the  uncertainty  always  likely  to  be  the  same.     A 
record  so  prosaic  and  human  as  the  Lun-yu  has,  as  we 
have  said,  advantages  as  testimony.     That  its  doctrine  was 
based  on  universal  nature,  rather  than  on  personal  claims, 
removed    the  strongest  motive  to  mythic  license,  Thatof 
and  left  the  way  open  to  impartial  study  of  facts.   Confucius 
Confucius   is   a  philosopher ;  he  appeals  to  reason  puteiy°n 
only  ;  he  claims    no  divine  commission,  nor  mes-  natund 

•  •  x  f  and  hu' 

sianic  destiny.      It  is  in  the  name  of  all  history  man 
and  experience,  that    he  announces   laws  of  pri-  srounds- 


5/6  SAGES. 

vate  and  public  ethics,  and  enforces  them  on  his  time.  He 
recalls  a  wild  chaotic  age  to  these  laws  as  to  a  true  life, 
which  it  knows,  as  well  as  he,  that  it  is  rejecting.  The 
penalties  he  proclaims  are  already  matters  of  experience ; 
the  rewards  hq  promises  are  pointed  by  ideals  as  old  and  fa- 
miliar as  the  history  of  his  country  supplied  :  his  faith  is  in 
human  nature  and  its  normal  relation  to  the  universe.  His 
basis  is  thus  scientific  and  intuitional.  And  his  entire 
reliance  on  the  force  of  his  own  personal  character  and 
moral  appeal  causes  the  personal  element  to  be  everywhere 
peculiarly  prominent  in  the  record,  to  which  it  gives  an 
objective  value  of  no  ordinary  kind. 

A  teacher  of  whom  it  could  be  said  that  the  four  sub- 
jects on  which  he  did  not  talk  were  "  prodigies,  feats  of 
strength,  disorder,  and  spiritual  beings  ; "  while  the  four 
which  he  did  affect  were  "letters,  morality,  devotion  of 
soul,  and  truthfulness,"  l  —  was  not  likely  to  attract  around 
his  name,  at  least  for  a  time,  many  accretions  passing  the 
simplicity  of  fact. 

His  ideas  were  given  to  thoughtful  men  in  free  conver- 
sation. They  were  no  prerogative  of  a  sect  or  a  church, 
bound  to  awe  the  world  by  self-exaltation  and  mythological 
prestige.  The  Chinese  regard  Confucius,  however  perfect 
as  a  sage,  yet  as  one  who  presented  truths  older  than  him- 
self, and  old  as  the  world  ;  and  such  a  term  as  Confuci- 
anism, as  an  exclusive  title,  could  not  grow  up  in  China 
around  these  truths.  Nothing,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter, 
could  be  stronger  than  his  repudiation  of  all  claims  to  per- 
sonal superiority  over  other  men.  In  his  modest  confes- 
sions, and  his  naive  declarations  of  a  love  of  virtue  as  his 
only  confidence  and  delight,  there  is  a  singular  attractive- 
nese  unlike  any  thing  in  the  records  of  other  teachers  of 
mankind  on  a  similar  scale. 

We  have  here  to  deal,  not  with   a   shifting,  mythically 

*  Lunyu,  VII.  20,  24. 


CONFUCIUS.  577 

constructed  ideal ;  but  with  a  secular,  positive  person,  —  a 
simple  citizen  of  the  Empire. 

Chung-ne,  otherwise  called  Kung-fu-tse,1  was  born  551, 
B.C.,  in  the  State  of  Loo,  in  what  is  now  called  Lifeof 
Shan-tung,  in  the  reign  of  Ling-wang,  twenty-third  Confucius- 
Emperor  of  the  Tcheou.  His  parents  were  of  high  dignity 
but  poor  estate.  Their  proud  claim  of  descent  from  the 
primeval  Hwang- te  did  not  free  the  young  scholar  from 
the  honorable  discipline  of  toil  ;2  and  his  father's  death 
gave  him  in  childhood  to  the  entire  care  of  his  mother, 
to  whose  memory  he  was  always  tenderly  attached.  Noth- 
ing is  recorded  of  his  boyhood  but  a  passion  for  imitating 
the  ceremonial  rites  of  his  elders  ;  yet  he  seems  to  have 
aspired  to  public  service  from  the  first,  holding  the  post  of 
supervisor  of  fields  and  grain  in  his  native  State,  when  only 
twenty  years  old. 

But  he  cared  less  for  "  the  condition  of  sheep  and  oxen  "  3 
than  for  the  morals  of  men  ;  and  assumed  the  function  of 
teacher  in  early  manhood,  retaining  as  disciples  only  such 
persons  as  had  that  natural  insight  and  scent  of  truth, 
which  enables  them  "from  hearing  about  one  corner  of 
a  subject  to  divine  the  other  three."  4  At  his  mother's 
death,  we  find  him  anxious  to  render  all  the  services  to 
her  memory  known  to  custom,  and  distressed  at  hearing 
of  storms  overturning  her  monument  through  the  neglect 
of  those  left  in  charge  of  it.  The  three  years'  mourning 
interrupted  his  public  relations,  but  permitted  a  withdrawal 
like  Paul's  to  Arabia,  fruitful  of  deep  convictions  and  large 
aims. 

"At  fifteen,  my  mind  was  bent  on  learning  ;  at  thirty,  I  stood  firm  ; 
at  forty,  I  had  no  doubts  ;  at  fifty,  I  knew  the  laws  of  heavenly  order ; 
at  sixty,  my  ear  was  obedient  to  the  voice  of  truth  ;  at  seventy,  I  could 
follow  my  heart's  desire  without  transgressing  right."  6 

1  Teacher  of  the  Family  of  Kung.  *  Lunyu,  IX.  6. 

8  Menc.,  V.  PT.  u.  v.  4.  *  Lunyu,  VII.  8.  «  Ibid.,  II.  4. 

37 


578  SAGES. 

These  claims,  however  positive,  are  of  a  rare  and  noble 
His  sense  modesty.  They  not  only  recognize  progressive 
of  the  law  stages  in  moral  culture,  but  teach  that  only  the 

of  develop-       .  .  .......  •        *          ««      >    i 

ment  in  ripe  experience  of  a  life-time  spent  in  loyally  ful- 
cuiture.  filling  these  stages  of  growth  fits  one  freely  to 
trust  all  the  currents  of  his  natural  desires.  In  this  pa- 
tient sense  of  indispensable  conditions,  he  spent  most  of 
his  years  in  striving  to  establish,  in  one  State  after  another, 
the  ethics  and  politics  on  which  he  appears  to  have  "  stood 
firm  "  after  the  studies  of  his  youth. 

His  personality  must  have  attracted  attention  at  once, 
Early  for  tt  Tjuke  Chaou  of  Loo  "  sends  him  to  Tcheou,  to 
relations,  study  the  old  institutes  of  that  family,  then  on  the 
throne.  To  the  same  period  is  referred  the  story  of  his  visit 
to  the  mystic,  Lao-tse,  out  of  which  a  very  striking  effect  of 
contrast  has  been  worked  up.  The  great  individualist  holds 
the  great  conservatist  and  organizer  as  a  mere  delver  in 
the  dust  of  dead  men,  while  he  himself  seemed  to  Confu- 
cius a  celestial  dragon  flying  so  high  that  he  could  not  be 
caught. 

Chaou  being  driven  from  Loo,  Confucius  follows  him  to 
Tse ;  where  his  advice  is  not  respected,  and  where  the 
offer  of  the  revenues  of  a  city  without  the  right  to  earn 
them  by  managing  its  affairs  according  to  his  conscience 
provokes  him  to  say,  "  Very  far  is  Duke  King  from  under- 
standing me."1  In  curious  contrast  with  the  austere 
philosophy  which  governed  these  and  other  official  rela- 
tions of  the  sage,  was  his  enthusiasm  for  peculiar  forms  of 
ancient  music,  which  he  describes  as  both  beautiful  and 
good,  and  which  makes  him  forget  the  taste  of  food  for 
days.2 

At  this  early  period  his  ideas  of  the  proprieties  of 
function  as  the  basis  of  political  and  social  order  were 

1  Lunyu,  XV.  iii.  3  ;  Legge  (p.  67,  Philadelphia  ed.,  1867),  from  Family  Sayings. 

2  Lunyu,  III.  25;  VII.  13. 


CONFUCIUS.  579 

thoroughly  matured.  To  the  question,  "  What  is  govern- 
ment ?  "  he  replies  :  "  It  is  where  the  prince  is  prince,  and 
the  minister,  minister  ;  where  father  is  father,  and  son  is 
son."  Personal  character  and  national  unity  were  his  reme- 
dies for  the  disintegrations  of  his  time,  and  the  former  as 
the  sole  ground  and  guarantee  for  the  latter.  For  imperial 
functions  as  representative  of  the  Divine  Order  he  had  the 
most  jealous  respect,  becoming  indignant  at  any  perform- 
ance of  the  great  national  rites  by  another  hand,  or  any 
recitation  of  sacrificial  odes  by  chieftains  who  had  assumed 
the  forms  of  royalty.1 

Disorders  in  Loo  kept  him  from  office  for  fifteen  years, 
when  a  turn  of  affairs  brought  him  the  charge  of  a  official 
town,  of  which  his  disciples  tell  us  that  he  entirely  life- 
reformed  the  morals,  even  to  the  quality  of  the  handwork.2 
This  evidence  of  his  capacity  raised  him  to  the  office  of 
Minister  of  Public  Works.  Here,  as  well  as  at  the  head 
of  the  Department  of  Crime,  he  performed  similar  wonders 
of  administration.  He  punished  false  dealing,  repressed 
licentiousness,  reduced  brigandage  and  baronial  ambition. 
It  is  recorded  that  he  broke  off  a  political  conference  in 
consequence  of  the  other  party's  bringing  a  military  escort ; 
that  he  punished  a  father  who  complained  of  his  son,  for 
not  teaching  him  filial  obedience  ;  and  that  he  had  a  custom 
of  consulting  suitable  persons  in  criminal  cases,  which  gives 
a  rough  idea  of  jury  trial.  Troops  of  female  dancers  and 
fine  horses  sent  to  seduce  the  affections  of  the  prince  from 
his  Puritanic  minister  proved  successful,3  and  Confucius 
sorrowfully  went  away  to  Wei. 

Then  followed  many  bitter  years  of  exile,  in  which  he 
wandered,  Dante-like,    among   princes    who    were   Exneand 
strangers  to  his  principles,  heavy  with  the  sense  of  wander- 
having  grown  old  in  unappreciated  service  at  home. 
But  philosophy,  the  root  of  consolation  and  strength,  sus- 

i  Lunyu  III.  2,  10.  J  Li-ki.  3  Lunyu,  XVIII.  4. 


580  SAGES. 

tains  his  courage  if  it  does  not  remove  the  burden  of  his 
grief.  Escaping  an  attempt  at  assassination  by  his  enemies, 
he  reminds  his  followers  that  his  cause  could  not  be  harmed 
by  such  means.1  Assailed  by  scandal,  he  rests  his  good 
name  on  a  simple  appeal  to  Heaven  for  justice.2  Satirized 
on  his  personal  appearance,  he  could  see  the  comic  side  of 
it.3  In  all  personal  dangers  he  held  his  character  to  be 
sufficient  protection.4  The  story  of  his  breaking  a  forced 
oath,  mentioned  only  by  much  later  writers,  is  probably  a 
fiction.5  Hearing  that  one  of  his  disciples  is  recalled  to 
Loo  (the  order  was  in  fact  intended  for  himself),  he  utters 
his  inmost  longing  :  "  Let  me  too  return  !  "6  Poverty  and 
hunger  are  faced  with  stoical  reliance  on  the  dignity  of 
human  nature.7  To  those  who  reproached  him  for  wasting 
effort  on  a  corrupt  State  he  answers,  with  Chinese  sobriety, 
that  only  a  corrupt  State  needs  saving.8 

Amidst  these  discouragements,  he  describes  himself  as 
Use  of  m  one  wno  in  his  pursuit  of  knowledge  neglects  his 
fortunes,  food,  and  sinks  his  sorrows  in  the  joy  of  attaining 
truth,  and  thus  is  enabled  to  forget  the  coming  on  of  old 
age.9  There  are  stories,  perhaps  founded  on  this  reputa- 
tion for  a 'spiritual  mastery  of  circumstances,  of  his  resort- 
ing to  the  lute  amidst  his  privations,  and  to  singing  ;  and 
of  his  claiming  that  "for  the  man  who  tries  himself  and 
maintains  his  virtue,  through  hail  and  cold  and  snows  the 
pine  endures  and  flourishes."  "  The  sharp  trial  is  my  good 
fortune."  10 

The  root  of  his  force  is  faith  in  unrecognized  virtues 
and  the  unseen  ideal  powers  of  the  soul.  Tseu-kung 
suggested  that  his  notions  were  evidently  beyond  the 
times  :  could  he  not  come  down  a  little  ?  Confucius  re- 


1  Mencius,  V.  PT.  i.  8  ;  Lunyu,  VII.  22. 

2  Lunyn,  VI.  26.  8  Legge,  p.  79  ;  also  Lunyu,  XIV.  14. 

*  Lunyu,  IX.  5.  5   Legge,  p.  79;  also  Plath's  Leb.  d.  Conf.>  II.  p.  8. 

«  Lunyu,  V.  21.  T  Ibid.,  XV.  i.  »  Ibid.,  XVIII.  6. 

8  Ibid.,  VII.  18.  >o  Legge ;  Plath,  from  the  Isse.  Leb.  II.  25. 


CONFUCIUS.  58l 

plied  :  "  A  good  farmer  sows  his  corn,  but  cannot  make  it 
bear  harvest.  The  wise  man  spins  his  web  of  right  ways, 
and  he  cannot  ensure  its  being  received.  But  you  would 
have  it  received  without  his  shaping  it  at  all.  Sse,  your 
plan  is  not  very  far-seeing."  1  "  The  fragrant  wood  grows 
unseen  and  seems  wasted  ;  so  the  wise  man  changes  not 
his  rule  for  suffering  or  want.  As  for  life  and  death,  they 
hang  on  destiny." 2  His  cause  was  the  moral  universe, 
himself  but  its  instrument  ;  his  life  or  death  its  incidents.3 
It  was  not  important  that  he  should  stay  in  this  court  or 
in  that,  but  only  that  he  should  not  stay  where  he  could 
not  obey  its  commands.4  Thus  he  never  remained  more 
than  three  years  in  a  kingdom.6  Popular  odes  ascribed  to 
him  express  the  traditional  idea  of  the  man  of  sorrows 
grieving  for  his  people.  The  death  of  a  favorite  disciple, 
whose  aspiration  and  modesty  fitted  him  to  carry-on  his 
great  work,  was  one  of  the  heaviest  blows  of  this  period, 
and  brought  out  his  warmth  of  affection  :  "  If  I  am  not 
to  mourn  for  such  a  man,  for  whom  should  I  mourn  ?  He 
held  me  as  a  father.  I  would  fain  have  borne  myself  to- 
wards him  as  to  a  son."6 

At  last,  at  the  age  of  sixty-nine,  came  the  recall,  after 
thirteen  years  of  exile,  to  his  native  State.     He  ReCaiito 
returns  with  an  ideal,  for  ever  disappointed,7  but  Lo°;with- 

rr  drawal  to 

never  doubted  nor  dishonored.     The  lesson  he  had  literary 
striven  to  teach  others,  of  the  fitnesses  in  time  and  ta 
place,  had  been  commended  to  his  own  lips  on  the  great 
field  of  affairs,  and  was  thoroughly  learned.     Henceforth 
he  will  labor  for  a  nobler  future,  and  endow  the  ages  with 
a  gift  which  they  cannot  reject  nor  forget.     In  State  affairs 
we  hear  but  little  more  of  him  ;  but  the  ancient  records  of 
immortal  men,  —  their  wisdom,  rites,  laws,  the  historic  provi- 


1  Sse-ki,  quoted  by  Plath,  p.  22.  a  Ibid.  8  Lunyu,  XIV.  37,  38  ;  IX.  5. 

4  Ibid.,  XVIII.  3,  4.  6  Mencius,  V.  PT.  n.  4. 

6  Lunyu,  XI.  8-10,  6,  18;  VII.  10  ;  IX.  20.  »  Ibid.,  VII.  5. 


582  SAGES. 

deuce  of  moral  order,  —  are  gathering  in  that  silence  of  his 
latest  years  into  a  voice  that  shall  echo  through  a  hundred 
generations.  There  is  an  anthem  scored  between  these 
modest  lines  :  "  When  I  returned  to  Loo  the  music  was 
reformed,  and  the  Odes  found  their  proper  place."  l  The 
time  was  short ;  only  five  years  more  of  life  were  to  be 
allowed  him.  He  wanted  fifty  to  study  the  Y-king,  the 
mystic  diagrams,  where  all  relations  were  written  in  a  ci- 
pher as  old  as  the  world.2  Once  we  hear  of  his  emerging 
into  political  affairs,  to  protest  against  harsh  taxation  pro- 
posed by  one  of  his  own  disciples.3  The  "  authorities  "  of 
Loo  could  not  be  roused  to  vigor  or  even  to  good  sense. 
His  last  great  sorrow  was  the  death  of  Tsze,-loo  ;  a  kind 
of  "  Peter  "  among  the  disciples,4  but  skilled  to  draw  forth 
his  best  thoughts,  and  praised  as  one  who  never  slept 
on  a  promise,  and  would  not  flee  from  a  post  of  peril,  nor 
die  a  natural  death.5  The  Tchun-tsieu  is  believed  to  have 
been  the  work  of  his  last  few  months  of  solitude,  his  part- 
ing protest  against  the  evil  time.  That  all  his  literary 
activity  was  crowded  into  the  five  years  before  his  death 
is  probably  substantially  true. 

His  disciples  keenly  felt  his  outward  failure ;  they  em- 
oidage.  phasized  the  burdens  of  old  age,  disappointment, 
and  disease  that  weighed  on  him  when  he  crept  about  on 
his  staff,  saying, — 

"  The  mountain  must  crumble,  the  strong  beam  must  break,  and 
the  wise  man  must  wither  like  a  plant." 

To  a  disciple  he  says  :  — 

"No  one  in  the  Empire  would  make  me  his  master;  my  time  is 
come  to  die."  "  The  Tablet  no  longer  comes  out  of  the  Hoang-ho, 
nor  the  Book  out  of  the  Lo  :  my  day  is  done."  6 

1  Lunyu, IX.  14.  2  Lunyu,  VII.  16.  s  Plath,  pp.  37-39.  4  Legge. 

5  Lunyu,  V.  8;  IX.  11,26;  XI.  12,  14,  24;  XIII.  3;  XV.  i ;  XIV.  23,  45;  V.  25  ;  II.  17; 
XII.  12  ;  Legge,  87. 

8  See  Legge,  87  ;  Plath,  II. ;  Li-ki,  &c. 


CONFUCIUS.  583 

These  expressions,  if  genuine,  are  plainly  the  language 
of  sickness  and  old  age,  uttered  in  the  weakness  of  Natural 
approaching  death.     But  it  is  the  intense  natural  pathos  of 
reality  of  the  sad  record  that  impresses  us.     Con-  JLTand 
trast  it  with  those  of  other  deaths  famous  in  the  d*ath- 
tradition  of  faith.     Buddha  dies  in  a  holy  grove,  whh  those 


surrounded  by  reverent  companions,  serenely  trans-  ° 
ferring  to  them  the  precepts  they  are  to  bear  forth 
for  the  healing  of  the  nations:  he  dies  transfigured  in  the 
glory  of  assured  success,  ascending  into  the  perfect  bliss 
of  Nirvana.  Jesus  on  the  cross,  abandoned  by  his  dis- 
ciples, in  an  agony  that  catches  at  words  of  despair,  is  yet 
the  centre  of  signs  and  omens  that  contradict  these  words  ; 
and  dies  with  the  proud  claim  on  his  lips  of  a  finished  life- 
work,  foreordained  by  the  plan  of  the  Omnipotent.  These 
are  idealizations  ;  man's  mythic  clothing  of  his  own  religious 
desires  in  the  responsive  heavens  and  earth.  But  they  are 
not  biography  :  they  are  not  the  actual  dealing  of  real  man 
with  real  life,  with  inexorable  limits,  with  pain  and  old  age 
and  death  ;  with  social  failure  and  the  unknown  future. 
They  ignore  and  set  these  aside  in  the  person  of  one,  but 
neither  solving  their  mystery  nor  defeating  the  reality  of 
their  dealing  with  all.  As  -man  matures,  enforced  to  front 
the  clearly  seen  facts  of  Nature,  and  to  master  them  only 
by  accepting  what  they  bring,  he  wants  human  experien- 
ces ;  the  ever  human  conditions  dealt  with  in  human  fash- 
ion, according  to  universal  laws  of  strength  and  growth. 
He  wants  reconciliation  with  these  conditions  of  his  life  ; 
not  repudiation  of  them,  nor  evasions  of  them  by  miracu- 
lous or  other  special  gift.  That  life  is  most  helpful  which, 
bearing  all  the  burden,  "  knows  what  is  in  man  "  by  know- 
ing only  what  human  nature  can  bring  to  meet  it.  "  To 
practise  wonders  to  be  honored  in  future  ages,"  said  Con- 
fucius, "  is  what  I  do  not  do.  I  will  not  stop  half  way  on 
the  right  path."  1 

i  Chung-yung,  XI.  ;  Lunyu,  VII.  20. 


584  SAGES. 

Jesus  puts  no  trust  in  this  world,  but  finds  refuge  from 
its  practical  relations  in  supernatural  promises  and  hopes, 
and  in  an  exaltation  of  love  and  faith  which  is  yet  but  a 
single  side  of  human  experience,  after  all.  Buddha  calls 
his  followers  out  of  the  world  to  pronounce  it  empty  and 
void,  even  while  consecrated  to  removing  its  sorrow,  and 
filling  it  with  peace  and  hope.  Confucius  strives  to  incar- 
nate his  idea  in  actual  institutions  ;  not  a  kingdom  apart 
from  this  world,  but  of  this  world,  as  China  saw  and  must 
see  it.  The  intensity  of  the  hope  measures  the  depth  of 
the  disappointment.  Not  more  than  Confucius  does  Jesus 
find  acceptance  from  the  world.  But  to  one  who  saw  the 
world  passing  away  in  flames  of  judgment  in  the  near  future, 
this  would  be  of  little  moment.  To  the  Jesus  of  the  New 
Testament,  lifted  in  the  awfulness  of  a  divine  purpose,  a 
mystery  of  Hebrew  prophecy  and  atonement  for  sin,  the 
burden  of  woe  is  in  the  unsounded  depth  of  this  atone- 
ment, in  the  symbolic  withdrawal  of  God's  supporting  hand 
from  the  last  agony.  Mark  the  contrast.  The  cry  of  the 
young  Jesus,  "  It  is  finished,"  is  messianic  function  in  its 
earthly  pangs  fulfilled.  The  words  of  the  aged  Confucius, 
"  It  is  time  for  me  to  die,"  are  the  spoken  consciousness  of 
a  long  life  spent  in  faithful  service  of  the  highest  practical 
aims,  which  had  left  him  stranded  and  alone,  with  no  out- 
ward sign  of  success,  yet  assured  that  what  a  mortal  life 
could  do  had  been  done.  Not  to  the  scientist  only,  but  to 
every  one  who  comprehends  that  the  laws  of  our  actual 
nature  must  be  faced  and  built  upon,  not  superseded,  surely 
the  more  pathetic  and  the  more  attractive  of  the  two. 

This  one  mortal  life  had  done  what  it  could  to  rebuild  on 
Dignity  of  better  foundations,  and  now  all  must  be  left  to  the 
Jealflnd  keeping  of  the  moral  order  it  had  proclaimed.  No 
their  task,  public  reward,  no  trust  in  miraculous  aid  :  the  seed 
must  be  left  in  the  unwilling  soil,  and  the  sower  must  de- 
part, having  done  his  best ;  trusting,  for  the  State,  only  in 


CONFUCIUS.  585 

the  slow  retributions  that  must  bring  order  and  peace. 
With  this  we  are  at  home.  It  is  life  and  truth.  It  belongs 
to  the  future,  as  to  the  present  and  the  past.  Observe,  too, 
that  he  who  has  faced  injustice  in  presence  of  kings  and 
peoples  does  not  compromise  his  convictions  in  presence 
of  death  :  — 

"  I  have  seen  men  die  from  treading  water  or  fire,  but  never  from 
treading  the  track  of  virtue."  "  The  true  man  will  yield  up  his  life  to 
preserve  his  virtue."  ' 

He  has  not,  like  the  Sibyl,  burned  his  books  one  by  one  ; 
he  has  not  adapted  doctrine  to  the  exigencies  of  a  church. 
His  latest  work  is  the  completest  monument  of  his  confi- 
dence in  the  humanity  to  which  he  appealed.  His  response 
is  the  veneration  of  millions  ;  a  tribute  not  to  miraculous 
power,  but  to  pure  force  of  character,  to  the  devoted  service 
of  historical  continuity  and  universal  law  ;  a  tribute  which 
will  continue  valid  when  the  limitations  of  the  Chinese,  as 
those  of  the  Christian,  ideal,  shall  have  passed  away  for 
ever.  It  was  foreshadowed  in  the  enthusiasm  of  his 
disciples. 

"  Chung-ne  cannot  be  reviled.     It  is  of  no  use."     "  He  cannot  be 
attained  to,  more  than  heaven  can  be  scaled  by  a  staircase."   Tributes  of 
"The  door  must  be  found  to  reach  the  sacredness  and  the   hisfoiiow- 
state  within  him  ;  and  few  there  are  that  find  it."     "  While    ers" 
you  live,  how  should  I  (Tsze-loo)  presume  to  die  ?  "  2 

The  eulogy  of  Tsze-Tsze,  author  of  the  Chung-yung, 
asserts  that, — 

"  Wherever  the  sky  overarches  and  the  earth  sustains,  and  sun  and 
moon  shine,  and  frosts  and  dews  fall,  all  that  have  blood  and  breath 
unfeignedly  honor  and  love  him.  Hence  he  is  called  the  companion 
of  Heaven."  3 

Mencius  quotes  a  disciple  who  speaks  the  belief  of 
all:  — 

i  Lunyu,  XV.  35;  Mencius,  VII.,  PT.  I.  42;  Lunyu,  XV.  8. 

*  Ibid.,  XIX.  23,  24,  25  ;  XI.  22.  »  Chung-yunz,  XXXI. 


5  86  SAGES. 

"  The  sages  among  mankind  are  the  same  in  nature ;  but  they 
stand  out  among  their  fellows  :  and  from  the  beginning  not  one  has 
ever  been  so  complete  as  Confucius."  * 

The  unique  description  of  his  manners  and  tastes  in  the 
The  Lun-  tenth  book  of  the  Lunyu,  however  childish  at  first 
J jjf"*  sight,  is  not  without  real  value.  It  may  not  be 
sonaihab-  edifying  to  know  that  he  was  fond  of  ginger,  and 

liked  his  food  well  minced,  and  was  a  very  proper 
man  according  to  Chinese  ideas  of  dress,  diet,  and  de- 
meanor. And  if  we  are  pleased  to  hear  that  he  could  be 
relied  on  not  to  go  too  far  in  potation,  we  are,  alas,  rather 
posed ., by  the  fine  point  that,  in  presence  of  the  prince,  his 
manner  betrayed  "respectful  uneasiness,  grave  but  self- 
possessed  ; "  and  not  less  by  the  comical  figure  of  a  great 
sage,  trembling  in  the  legs  when  officially  receiving  a 
public  guest,  keeping  his  robe  adjusted  even,  before  and 
behind,  and  hastening  forward  with  arms  spread  like  the 
wings  of  a  bird.  All  these  matters  we  must  leave  till  we 
have  better  acquaintance  with  the  meaning  of  Chinese 
ceremonies  and  their  doubtless  untranslatable  verbal  de- 
scriptions. But  it  is  impossible  to  mistake  the  great  out- 
His  traits  lines,  even  in  this  Oriental  photograph,  of  a  temper- 
ofchar-  ament  combined  of  modesty,  prudence,  reverence 
Sympa-  for  far-descended  amenities  and  dignified  respects, 

and  delicate  regard  to  the  feelings  and  expectations 
of  others.  How  significant  the  record  that  he  bowed  down 
to  the  cross-bar  of  his  carriage  on  passing  a  mourner,  just 
as  he  did  to  the  tablets  that  told  the  statistics  of  the  State ! 2 
Elsewhere  we  read  of  his  sedulous  attention  to  the  comfort 
of  the  blind,3  of  his  rising  when  in  company  of  the  afflicted,4 
of  his  teaching  respect  for  the  young,  "  of  whom  we  know 
not  but  their  future  will  be  equal  to  our  present." 5  His 

1  Mencius,  II.  PT.  i.  2  ;  see  also  Plath's  Sckuler  d.  Conf.  for  testimonials  of  later 
works ;  and  for  the  lamentations  of  his  disciples  after  his  death,  Ibid.,  Leb.  d.  Conf.  II. 

3  Lunyu,  X.  16.  »  jbJd.,  XV.  41  ;  IX.  9. 

4  Ibid.,  IX   9.  5  Ibid.,  IX.  22. 


CONFUCIUS.  587 

fine  sense  of  filial  affection  is  combined  with  regard  for  the 
right  of  children  to  be  free  from  disrepute  on  account  of 
the  vices  of  their  parents.1  His  sympathetic  appreciation 
appears  in  his  frequent  tributes  to  his  followers,2  and  his 
desire  to  spare  needless  or  wanton  sacrifice  of  others  was 
proverbial :  "  The  master  angled  but  did  not  use  a  net ;  he 
shot,  but  not  at  perching  birds."  3  His  disciples  were  his 
children ;  he  was  tender  to  the  sick ;  he  was  natural  and 
easy,  capable  of  enthusiasm  for  music,  roused  by  hearing 
of  hign  achievement  or  fine  thought.4  His  sense  of  the 
humorous  makes  him  unique  among  the  founders 
or  masters  of  faith.5  Yet  he  keeps  a  serious  and 
critical  eye  on  the  qualities  of  his  companions,  and  knows 
how  to  make  aphorisms  of  common  sense  out  of  his  broken 
idols  and  disappointed  expectations.6  The  lofty  critical 
ideal  test  by  which  he  tried  all  comers  made  some  sense- 
of  these  personal  judgments  appear  severe,  and  led  to  those 
sweeping  expressions  of  his  disappointment  in  human 
character,  which  are  at  variance  with  his  own  praises  of 
the  practical  effects  of  virtue  as  matters  of  daily  experi- 
ence.7 But  his  charity  for  the  weak  and  sinning  was  very 
generous : — 

"  By  observing  a  man's  faults  it  becomes  known  that  he  has  vir- 
tues." {      "  He  who  requires  much  from  himself  and  little 
from  others  will  save  himself  from  resentments."     "  How  can 
one  guide  the  blind  unless  he  supports  him  when  tottering,  and  raises 
him  when  fallen  ?  "  9 

Tseng-tseu  said  :  "  If  the  master  sees  one  good  in  a  man, 
he  forgets  a  hundred  faults."  10     His  answers  to  all 

G  Fearless 

policies  of  hopelessness  or  indifference  were  always  use  of  op- 
noble,  and  his  acts  fearless  of  evil  tongues.     "  If  I  P°rtunity- 

Lunyu,  IV.  21  ;  VI.  4.  »  Ibid.,  II.  9;  IX.  19;  VI.  59;   XII.  12  ;  XI.  4,  6. 

Ibid.,  VII.  26.  *  Ibid.,  XI.  8,  10 ;  VI.  8 ;  VII.  4 ;  X.  15,  16  ;  VII.  13,  31. 

Ibid.,  XVII.  4;  XIV.  14;  V.  6. 

Ibid.,  V.  9  ;  XIV.  5,  33  ;  VII.  25  ;  VIII.  18,  21  ;  XX.  i  ;  XIV.  26,  6 ;  VI.  9. 

Ibid.,  IV.  6  ;  V.  26  ;  VII.  25  ;  IX.  17  ;  see  especially  B.  vi.  »  jfcid.,  iy.  7. 

Ibid.,  XV.  14;  XVI.  i.  1°  Plath,  p.  9. 


588  SAGES. 

associate  not  with  those  who  need  help,  with  whom  then 
shall  I  concern  myself  ? "  "  Am  I  a  bitter  gourd,  to  be 
hung  up  out  of  the  way  of  being  eaten  ? "  "  If  even  a 
rebel  chief  will  employ  me,  shall  I  not  accept  it  and  make 
a  Tcheou  even  of  him  ? "  "  If  in  calling  on  a  harlot  (prin- 
cess) I  have  done  wrong,  may  Heaven  reject  me." J  It 
was  his  principle  everywhere  "to  seize  the  opportunity 
and  beware  of  evil."  Of  two  things  he  hated  most,  aim- 
less living  was  one.  The  squatter  on  lazy  heels  he  hits 
Hatred  of  with  his  staff.  "  Rotten  wood  cannot  be  carved ; 

altinsiT  a  dirt  wal1  won>t  stand  the  trowel."  2  "  In  youth 
cerity.  not  becomingly  modest ;  in  manhood  doing  nothing 
worth  remembering,  and  living  on  to  old  age,  —  this  is 
to  be  a  pest."  3  The  other  hateful  thing  was  insincerity. 
The  glib  tongue  and  strain  to  appear  what  one  is  not,  fine 
words,  excessive  respects,  pretended  regards,  —  of  these 
he  is  ashamed.4  In  mourning,  ceremony  without  sorrow 
is  vain.5  Life  must  be  made  valid,  or  he  would  have  none 
of  it.  No  staying  where  his  principles  had  no  chance.  No 
attempt  to  do  what  he  had  not  learned  to  do,  or  to  fill 
functions  he  could  only  discredit  ; 6  no  tampering  with 
self-respect,  but,  by  all  accounts,  fidelity  to  his  own  max- 
ims, that  "  virtue  is  what  devolves  on  oneself,  and  is  not 
to  be  yielded  to  any  ; "  and  that  "  to  see  what  is  right  and 
not  to  do  it  is  the  part  of  a  coward."  7 

Shaped  in  the  Chinese  mould  of  the  "  Middle  Path,"  a 

Good     prudential  balance  of  relations,  he  shows  a  sedulous 

sense,     regard  to    circumstances  and   distinction's,  which 

may  sometimes  seem   excessive,  but  usually  illustrates  his 

good  sense.8     His   counsels   are  wise,  kindly,  and  fitting 

the  case  in  hand  ; 9   he  is  no  doctrinaire,  but  a  student  of 

1  Lunyu,  XVIII.  6  ;  XVII.  7,  5  5  VI.  26 ;  Mencius,  III.  PT.  n.  3-  2  Lunyu,  V.  9. 

8  Ibid.,  XIV.  46.  *  Ibid.,  XI.  24  ;  V.  4  5  XVI.  4  ;  VII.  25  :  V.  24  ;  XI.  20. 

8  Ibid.,  III.  4.       e  Ibid.,  XIII.  5  ;  XIV.  28.        1  Ibid.,  XVIII.  3,  4 ;  XV.  35  ;  II.  24. 

8  Ibid.,  XIII.  17  ;  X.  29 ;  XIV.  21 ;  VI.  19  ;  VII.  8 ;  XI.  21 ;  XIV.  14. 

9  Ibid.,  XI.  21 ;  V.  21. 


CONFUCIUS.  589 

persons  and  emergencies.  His  incessant  theme  is  the 
balance  of  character,  the  danger  of  one-sidedness,  the 
mutual  dependence  of  study  and  original  thought,  of  solid 
sense  and  fine  taste,  that  due  observance  of  limits  in  which 
the  virtue  of  any  quality  consists.1  He  is  not  par-  catho- 
tisan  but  catholic,  "  without  foregone  conclusions,  licity- 
or  arbitrary  prejudices,  or  obstinate  egotism."2  From  his 
followers  he  "  conceals  nothing,"  to  none  refuses  instruc- 
tion, whether  rich  or  poor;  meeting  the  questions  of  every 
person  on  the  ground  of  reason.3  And  with  all  his  respect 
for  forms  and  functions  he  boldly  challenges  proof,  that  in 
his  praise  or  dispraise  of  other  men  he  has  ever  shown 
respect  of  persons  in  writing  or  speech.4' 

"  Tsze-loo  asked  what  constitutes  the  superior  man.  He  an- 
swered, *  Self-cultivation,  so  as  to  give  rest  to  all  people.  Even 
Yao  and  Shun  were  still  anxious  about  this.'  "  6  "  Seeking  to  be  estab- 
lished, the  true  man  seeks  to  establish  others  ;  wishing  enlargement, 
he  enlarges  others."  e 

One  who  could  recognize  such  a  scope  of  meaning  in 
self-discipline  as  this  might  well  make  self-culture  the 
basis  of  his  ethics  of  humanity. 

Surrounded  by  a  personal  admiration  without  limit,  his 
modesty  is  astonishing,  He  lays  claim  to  nothing  Modesty, 
but  love  of  truth  and  virtue  ;  thinks  himself  good  enough 
at  letters,  but  far  from  the  ability  to  carry  out  in  conduct 
what  he  believes  right.7  He  dares  not  rank  himself  with 
the  great  ideals.  "  It  may  simply  be  said  of  me  that  I 
strive  to  become  like  them."  He  pretends  to  no  origin- 
ality :  "  a  transmitter,  not  a  maker,  believing  in  and  loving 
the  ancients."  8  Here  was  one  who  foreclosed  by  his  own 

Lunyu,  VI.  27  ;  XX.  i ;  XVII.  8  ;  II.  15  ;  VI.  16  ;  VIII.  2. 

Ibid.,  IX.  4.  8  VII.  23,7  !  XVIII.  5,  7. 

Ibid ,  XV.  24.  B  Ibid.,  XIV.  45- 

Ibid.,  VI.  28.  •>  Ibid.  V.  27 ;  VII.  32  ;  IX.  7 ;  VII.  33. 

Ibid.,  VII.  i,  19;  XVIII.  8;  VIII.  21;  VII.  16. 


590  SAGES. 

confessions  that  admiration  which  men  yield  to  those  who 
bring  fresh  Promethean  fire  to  the  life  of  the  race.  If  he 
really  wrote  the  "  Spring  and  Autumn  Classic,"  and  ex- 
pected to  be  judged  by  it  as  his  one  original  work,  it  cer- 
tainly adds  little  to  his  fame.  We  can  well  believe  that 
one  so  absorbed  in  the  universality  of  truth  should  realize 
that  there  can  be  no  pure  originality,  and  none  apparent, 
save  in  the  way  of  presenting  old  truths.  We  can  see  that 
to  one  coming  after  such  a  past  as  China  by  his  account 
unfolded  to  his  enthusiasm  and  faith,  originality  must  have 
seemed  foolishness  in  face  of  the  majestic  record  of  saints, 
sages,  and  institutions.  Originality  is  the  aureole  of  a 
nation's  youth  and  untried  powers.  Here  a  people  had 
seen  all  political  and  personal  phases,  and  preserved  the 
memory  of  all.  Had  the  ideal  waited  till  the  days  of 
Confucius,  it  would  moreover,  for  a  Chinese,  have  been 
unworthy  the  name.1 

Yet  Confucius  has  not  done  himself  justice.  In  its 
.  compactness,  self-consistency,  thoroughness,  and 
in  style  and  breadth,  the  work  of  this  master  may  well  be  called 
spirit'  original.  Certainly  there  is  nothing  like  it  in  the 
history  of  his  people.  His  thought  combines  Socrates, 
Seneca,  and  Epictetus,  with  a  consecutiveness  and  point 
peculiar  to  his  race.  The  Lunyu  is  a  rain  of  sententious 
and  pungent  epigrams,  a  flood  of  gnomic  wisdom,  a  mys- 
tery of  compacted  phrase,  condensed  experience,  and  keen 
adaptation.  Its  immediate  growth  from  conversation  and 
event  is  unique  and  surprising  ;  and  the  frequent  air  of 
commonplace  in  its  maxims  is  owing  not  so  much  to  the 
lack  of  imagination  as  to  their  transparent  truth,  and  to 
the  fact  which  we  do  not  sufficiently  consider,  that  the 
evidences  of  their  wisdom  have  been  accumulating  for  us 

1  We  have  really  no  assured  data  of  Chinese  history  previous  to  Confucius,  besides  these 
writings  of  his.  If  he  derived  them  from  his  own  imagination,  originality  would  be  but  a 
tame  word  to  express  the  unparalleled  genius  of  the  work. 


CONFUCIUS.  591 

through  all  subsequent  ages.  No  other  style  resembles 
this  of  the  man  who,  "  in  his  native  village,  looked  simple 
and  sincere,  as  if  he  were  not  able  to  speak."  His  very 
abdication  of  originality  is  the  most  original  thing  I  know 
of  in  the  history  of  human  leaders.  To  have  put  himself 
wholly  out  of  sight ;  to  have  arrogated  no  throne,  predicted 
no  future  justification  "in  glory  ;"  to  have  offered  no  cre- 
dentials for  the  right  to  rule  mankind,  nor  even  breathed 
the  possibility  of  such  a  thing,  —  places  Confucius  by  him- 
self, among  the  centres  of  permanent  instituted -homage. 
It  is  true  there  is  a  Chinese  element  in  this  suppression 
of  his  individuality.  But  absorbed  into  the  millions  of  his 
people,  he  takes  them  up  into  an  unquestionable  self-respect, 
manhood,  which  asserts  original  meaning  and  peculiar 
genius  for  the  whole.  Of  what  other  political  and  institu- 
tional workman  can  this  ideal  personality  be  affirmed  ? 

This  merging  of  himself  in  the  truth  of  which  he  is  the 
instrument  does  not  blind  him  to  the  fact  that  he  alone 
does  really  represent  it,  and  that  his  function  is  indispen- 
sable.1 His  purposes  are  not  running  themselves.  Des- 
tiny is  behind  them,  with  the  incalculable  reserves  that  are 
not  barred  out  of  the  field  by  any  man's  failure  or  fall.2 

Hence  the  spiritual  perceptions,  which  prove  Confucius 
to  have  been  no  mere  utilitarian  or  logician.  He  Spirituality. 
knew  that  misfortune  and  evil  treatment  can  bring  out  the 
higher  forces  of  character.3  Trusting  in  deeds  rather  than 
words,  penetrating  beneath  shows  to  substance,4  he  could 
admire  the  patience  and  silence  of  creative  law,  and  feel 
the  inadequacy  of  language  to  report  it. 

"  The  Master  said, '  I  would  prefer  not  speaking.'  Tsze-kung  said, 
'  If  you  do  not  speak,  what  will  your  disciples  have  to  record  ?'  The 
Master  said,  '  Does  Heaven  speak  ?  The  four  seasons  pursue  their 


»  Lunyu,  IX.  5.        »  Ibid.,  VII.  22.        »  Ibid  ,  XIX.  17  ;   IX.  27  ;  XII.  6  ;  VI.  9. 
•  Ibid.,  XVII.  14;  XIV.  29;  XVII.  ii. 


592  SAGES. 

courses,  and  all  things  are  constantly  produced ;   but  does  Heaven 
use  words  ? '"  1 

He  learned  the  indispensableness  of  quiet  thought,  of 
Faith  in  patient  conformity  to  conditions,  of  thorough  fidel- 
inteiiectuai  ity,  of  uniting  modesty  with  enthusiasm  for  truth. 

limitations.      T  1  1  /•    .        .     ,  i    r    •    i      • 

Let  us  observe  that  no  test  01  insight  and  taith  is 
finer  than  the  degree  in  which  one  recognizes  the  real  lim- 
its of  knowledge  to  be  better  than  any  uncertain  specula- 
tions and  desires  by  which  'they  have  been  disguised  ; 
trusting  what  our  nature  shall  bring  us,  rather  than  to 
impose  our  apparent  interests  in  place  of  its  orderly  paths. 
"  You  know  not  life,  how  can  you  know  death  ?  "  2  "  It  is 
wisdom  to  do  human  duties  faithfully  ;  and,  while  respect- 
ing spirits,  to  keep  aloof  from  them."  3  This  life  was  too 
full  and  real  for  him  to  sacrifice  any  of  its  duties  to  dreams 
of  another ;  or  to  shift  its  emphasis  to  theological  sanc- 
tions, consigned  by  most  faiths  to  custodians  of  heaven 
and  hell.  His  religion  dealt  with  the  living  conscience 
and  the  sovereign  laws.  "  Of  three  things  a  true  man 
stands  in  awe  :  the  laws  of  Heaven,  great  men,  and  the 
Reverence  wor(^s  °^  tne  wise."  4  It  was  reverence  for  prin- 
for  Princi-  ciples  to  which  he  gave  the  name  "  Heaven " 

(Tien)  ;  a  sense  of  their  adequacy  and  intimacy, 
which  needed  no  external  image  or  symbol.  "  Heaven  "  is 
a  life  to  which  he  aspires  :  and  this  is  his  worship.  "  My 
prayer  is  a  constant  one." 5  "  Offences  against  Heaven  are 
an  end  of  prayer." 6  "  Heaven "  is  society,  recognition, 
peace.  "  1  do  not  murmur  against  Heaven.  I  do  not  fret 

1  Lunyu,  XVII.  19.    Compare  Ps.  XIX.  3  :   "There  is  no  speech  nor  language,  and  their 
voice  is  not  heard  ;  yet,  &c."     Also  Goethe's  :   "  Speech  is  so  idle,  I  may  say  presumptuous, 
that  before  the  grand  silence  of  Nature  in  solitude,  one  is  seized  with  fear." 

2  Ibid.,   XI.  ii.     Compare  the  Greek  sentences,  —  of  Democritus:    "Seek  not  to  know 
every  thing,  lest  you  become  ignorant  of  every  thing  ;  "  of  Sosias,  "  Speak  only  of  what  thou 
knowest;"    of    Chilon,  "Let    not   thy  tongue  go  beyond    thy   thoughts;"  of  Xenophon, 
"  He  who  talks  most  of  the  gods  knows  nothing."     Also  Goethe,  "  Of  the  internal  structure 
of  the  brain  we  know  nothing  ;  what  then  can  we  know  about  God  ?  " 

8  Ibid.,  VII.  20 ;  VI.  20.  *  Ibid.,  XVI.  8.  s  Ibid.,  VII.  34- 

«  Ibid.,  III.  13. 


CONFUCIUS.  593 

myself  at  men.  Below,  I  learn  ;  above,  I  aspire.  There 
is  Heaven  :  that  knows  me" 1  Of  his  reliance,  even  for 
public  life,  in  the  unseen  and  spiritual,  this  passage  quoted 
from  him  in  the  Chung-yung  is  significant :  — 

"  Among  means  of  popular  improvement,  sound  and  show  are 
trivial.  An  old  ode  says,  'Virtue  is  light  as  a  hair.'  But  even  a  hair 
has  apparent  size.  The  doings  of  Heaven  do  not  touch  men's  senses. 
And  such  is  the  highest  virtue.  In  peace  and  silence  is  the  spirit 
approached."  2 

The  labors  of  Confucius  had  little  visible  effect  on  the 
politics  of  his  time.  Like  Paul,  in  early  Christian-  Tragedy  of 
ity,  he  disappears  at  death  from  the  -notice  of  a  his  life- 
world  whose  secret  movement  he  is,  nevertheless,  power- 
fully impressing.  His  literary  work  was  far  more  effective 
than  his  political.  Regarded  as  an  experience,  his  life  is 
the  tragedy  of  Chinese  virtue.  In  him  the  national  demand 
for  instant  concrete  embodiments  appeared  in  the  form  of 
an  ethical  system  of  the  highest  tone,  at  a  moment  when 
its  application  was  in  every  petty  kingdom  of  China  inevi- 
tably a  failure.  The  disappointment  must  have  been  pro- 
portioned to  his  natural  confidence  in  his  demand,  which 
he  made  such  efforts  to  meet ;  to  his  belief  in  human  nat- 
ure ;  to  his  certainty  that  the  guarantee  of  his  doctrine 
of  the  State  was  no  less  than  the  divine  order  of  the  uni- 
verse. In  this  strange,  sad  mystery,  it  was  not  for  him  to 
give  over  the  world  to  a  doom  of  destruction.  Political 
life  was  man's  real  existence  :  it  was  incomprehensible 
that  man  should  reject  its  normal  rules. 

But  Confucius  learned  the  lesson.  The  demand  for  in- 
stant realization  of  the  ideal  may  go  so  far  as  to 

J  Its  triumph. 

forget  its  intrinsic  and  eternal  value.     Every  thing 
testifies  that  he  brought  out  of  his  defeat  not  only  the  wis- 
dom of  limit,  the  philosophy  of  a  culture  that  rises  through 
drawbacks  to  a  true  balance  and  breadth  ;  but  also  a  stately 

1  Lunyu,  XIV.  37.  »  Chung-yung,  XXXIII. 

38 


594  SAGES. 

harvest  of  integrity  and  self-respect.  Nothing  is  more  evi- 
dent than  his  firm  intrenchment  in  moral  order  as  of  one 
and  the  same  purport  within  him  and  without,  in  his  own 
ideal  and  in  the  facts  of  experience ;  and  therefore  to  be 
accepted  in  every  outward  condition  it  imposed,  however 
harsh,  as  wiser  than  private  plan  or  desire.  This  self-reli- 
ant rest  in  natural  law  is  probably  the  best  reconciliation 
of  the  soul  with  the  realities  of  destiny,  as  it  is  certainly 
the  crown  of  moral  freedom.  Reading  between  the  lines 
of  Confucius's  life,  we  seem  to  see  written  in  the  strange 
old  Mongol  face  the  grand  maxims  of  the  Roman  stoics  : 
"AH  things  are  fruit  to  me,  O  Nature,  which  thy  seasons 
bring."  l  "  Do  not  ask  to  have  things  that  are  made  by 
Nature  made  according  to  your  wishes,  but  wish  to  have 
them  made  as  they  are  made."  2  "  Freedom  is  not  procured 
by  full  enjoyment  of  what  is  desired,  but  by  controlling 
the  desire." 3  As  compared  with  reliance  on  a  Providential 
Will,  conceived  more  or  less  under  human  conditions,  this 
The  high-  resPect  f°r  tne  inherent  unity  and  universality  of 
estformof  the  moral  order  is  a  higher  form  of  faith,  and  a 
completer  solution  of  the  world.  It  is  impossible 
to  reconcile  with  volitions  of  a  justice  and  mercy  conceived 
in  that  individual  way  the  terrible  facts  of  evil.  No 
"  divine  scheme  "  in  this  line,  whether  of  miracle,  saviour, 
or  ultimate  redemption,  can  make  the  stern  mysteries  of 
strife,  suffering,  and  death  less  repulsive  to  the  mature 
reason  of  mankind.  That  self-respect,  which  alone  can 
afford  to  dispense  with  the  attempt  to  explain  or  evade 
them,  is  in  fact  respect  for  one's  own  inward  ideal  as  rep- 
resenting a  moral  order  inherent  in  the  unknown  substance 
of  the  world.  Love  and  justice  can  be  held  with  firmer 
faith  to  the  inmost  meaning  of  things,  when  revered  as 
inherent  in  their  nature  or  process,  and  as  of  themselves 
essentially  sovereign,  than  when  referred  to  distinct  voli- 

1  M.  Antoninus.  2  Epictetus.  3  Ibid. 


CONFUCIUS.  595 

tions  of  a  power  that  might  have  willed  otherwise,  and 
that  deliberately  props  them  on  sanctions  aside  from  their 
intrinsic  value  for  the  soul. 

The  resemblance  of  Confucius  to  the  Stoic  and  Socratic 
type   is   striking  in  such    further  respects    as   his  Affinities 
appreciation  of  self-knowledge,  equilibrium  of  fac-  with  the 
ulties,  limit    and   difference   in  the  qualities    and  gocrttk 


capacities  of  men.  But  he  possessed  a  tenderly 
sympathetic  instinct,  which  made  him  more  lenient  than 
either  of  these  schools  to  the  weakness  of  human  will 
and  the  imperfection  of  human  knowledge.  He  is  easily 
moved  to  tears  by  the  sense  of  his  dependence  on  the 
affection  of  his  companions,  and  on  their  recognition  of 
his  motives  and  aims.  Not  a  shadow  of  contempt  deepens 
the  heavy  judgment  he  is  compelled  to  pass  on  his  own 
generation.  No  denunciation  to  future  wrath  mars  his 
mournful  testimony  against  their  blindness  and  deafness 
to  the  appeals  of  truth. 

The  seclusion  of  his  latest  years  veils  other  and  deeper 
resources,  not  so  easily  to  be  slighted  or  set  aside. 

*  The  legacy 

The  personal  force  that  could  prepare  at  the  close  of  his  latest 
of  a  rejected  life  such  a  self-justification  as  the  yeai 
legacy  of  a  nation's  imperishable  gospel,  was  making  an 
appeal  from  the  present  to  the  future  hard  to  parallel  in 
history.  Here  nothing  is  due  to  the  praise  or  furtherance 
of  his  disciples.  This  work  of  a  neglected  old  age  is  al- 
together his  own.  There  is  no  record  of  a  suggestion  from 
others,  nor  of  any  practical  aid  in  its  accomplishment. 
It  was  a  history,  a  literature,  a  transcript,  by  his  own 
showing  ;  nor  can  we  disprove  the  admission.  Yet  it  was 
an  irresistible  call  upon  the  conscience  and  heart  of  his 
people  to  confirm,  at  the  bidding  of  all  its  traditions  and 
culture,  the  truth  of  the  ideal  he  had  offered  them  only  to 
be  despised.  He  knew  a  dialectic  that  covered  all  their 
experience.  And  they  have  found  in  him  all  they  had  lost 


SAGES. 

or  wasted.  Here  indeed  a  "rejected  stone  is  become  the 
head  of  the  corner."  With  their  own  people,  whom  they 
loved  most,  Buddha,  Pythagoras,  Jesus  failed.  But  to  Con- 
fucius the  Chinese  consciousness  has  answered  like  the 
stringed  instrument  to  which  he  resorted  for  solace  in  his 
hours  of  trouble.  In  that  splendid  bequest  of  the  Classics, 
nothing  dear  to  Chinese  experience  is  forgotten.  It  is 
probably  the  completest  statement  of  a  national  faith  ever 
made, — song,  annals,  mystic  symbolism,  historic  tendencies 
and  lessons,  personal  ideals, — to  be  read  in  the  reverence  of 
a  people  for  its  past,  "  the  child  the  father  of  the  man  ;"  not 
as  prodigy,  nor  exclusive  pretension,  but  as  the  order  of 
Nature,  the  familiar  laws  of  all  ages  and  tribes. 


III. 

DOCTRINE     OF     CONFUCIUS. 


•   DOCTRINE     OF     CONFUCIUS. 


TT^ROM  our  account  of  what  Confucius  was,  we  proceed 
•^    to  a  summary  of  what  he  taught. 

We  have  here  an  interest  purely  human.  Never  eyes 
so  concentrated  on  ethical  law  as  these  Mongoloid  orbs, 
struck  wide  open  and  possessed  by  its  commandments  in 
a  wild  and  rudderless  time.  Art,  science,  nature,  are  all 
ignored ;  or  at  least  postponed  to  that  renovation  of  the 
personality  that  must  master  and  guarantee  them.  There- 
fore his  first  demand  is  that  the  sanctity  of  individual 
conscience  be  fully  recognized.  "The  commander  of  a 
great  army  may  be  carried  off ;  but  the  will  of  a  common 
man  cannot  be  taken  from  him."  l  The  end  is  self-perfec- 
tion ; 2  the  starting  point,  self-respect. 

"  What  the  superior  man  seeks  is  in  himself ;  what  the  ignoble  man 
seeks  is  in  others.     Virtue  is  like  the  polar  star,  which  keeps  Man's rela- 
its  place,  and  all  stars  turn  toward  it.     The  substance  of  the  tion  to 
Odes  is  in  this:   '  Have  no  depraved  thoughts.'     When  one  himself, 
discerns  no  evil  in  his  own  mind,  what  room  for  anxiety  or  fear  ?     It 
is  needless  to  dwell  on  what  is  past  and  done.     He  is  not  discomposed 
because  men  take  no  note  of  him.     For  (such)  uprightness  man  is 
born."3 

To  the  personality  of  another  is  due  a  like  respect. 

"  Faithfully  and  kindly  admonish  your  friend  :  if  you  find  him  im- 
practicable, stop  ;  but  disgrace  not  yourself.  Even  a  parent  requires 

1  Lunyu,  IX.  25.  2  Chung-yung,  XXV ;  Lunyu,  XII.  i  ;  XVII.  6. 

»  Lutyu,  XV.  20,  35 ;  II.  i,  2 ;  XII.  4 ;  III.  21 ;  XIV.  13  ;  I.  i  j  VI.  17. 


6OO  SAGES. 

remonstrance.      However  long  the  intercourse  of  friends,  the  same 
respect  will  be  shown  as  at  the  first." 1 

The  rule  of  such  faith  and  freedom  must  be  the  just 
estimates  that  come  of  self-knowledge  and  self-discipline. 

"  A  man  should  say,  I  am  not  concerned  that  I  have  no  place  :  I  am 
concerned  how  I  may  become  fit  for  one.  I  am  not  con- 
cerned  that  I  am  not  known  :  I  seek  to  become  worthy  to  be 
and  inward  known.  I  am  concerned  that  I  do  not  know  others.  Assail 
honesty.  yOur  own  vjceS)  not  another's.  When  you  know  a  thing, 
to  hold  that  you  know  it,  and  when  you  do  not,  to  admit  the  fact, — this  is 
knowledge."  2 

Honest  dealing  with  one's  own  character,  insisting  on 
reality,  renouncing  pretension  as  vain,  is  the  indispensable 
thing. 

"  Is  virtue  from  a  man's  own  force,  or  from  another's  ?  How  can  a 
man  conceal  his  character  ?  The  superior  man  sees  the  heart  of  the 
mean  one.  Of  what  use  is  disguise  ?  What  is  in  comes  out.  There- 
fore the  wise  will  be  watchful  when  alone." 

"  First  the  plain  ground,  then  the  colors.  Fear  not  to  forsake  your 
faults.  Fear  not  poverty,  but  fear  to  miss  of  the  truth.  Be  not 
ashamed  to  learn  of  inferiors."3 

This  thirst  for  realities  goes  to  the  essence  of  things,  and 
we  have  such  definitions  as  these :  — 

"  Distinction  is  not  in  being  heard  of  far  and  wide  ;  but 
in  being  solid,  straight-forward,  and  loving  the  right." 

"  Filial  Piety  is  supposed  to  mean  the  support  of  one's 
parents  ;  but  brutes  can  do  that :  without  reverence,  what 
difference  between  these  kinds  ? " 

Learning  is  fulfilment  of  the  great  relations  of  life. 

Virtue  is  "inquiring  with  earnestness,  and  inwardly 
making  application." 

Manners  consist  in  "  behaving  to  every  one  as  if  receiving 
a  guest,  in  causing  no  murmuring,  and  in  not  treating 
others  as  you  would  not  wish  to  be  treated  by  them." 

1  Lunyuj  XII.  23;  IV.  18;  V.  16.  *  Ibid.,  IV.  14;  I-  16;  II.  17;  XII.  21. 

8  Ibid.,  XII.  x;  II.  10.  Comment,  to  Tahio,  VI.    Lunyu,  III.  8;  I.  8;  XV.  31 ;  VIII.  5. 


DOCTRINE    OF    CONFUCIUS.  6OI 

Propriety  is  that  rule  "by  which  tendencies  are  saved 
from  excess."  "  If  one  be  without  virtue,  what  has  he  to 
do  with  rites  of  propriety  or  with  music  ? " 

Language  is  "  not  mere  utterance  ;  but  keeping  words  to 
the  truth  of  things."  Hence  the  virtue  of  a  wise  reticence 
as  to  what  we  do  not  know.1 

"  How  is  it  men  will  not  walk  by  these  ways  ?  Who  can  go  oat  but 
by  the  door  ?  How  can  a  carnage  go  without  a  yoke  ?  "  a 

This  is  the  sum  :  there  is  no  rest  for  man  but  in  ideal 
standards  and  aims ;  no  success  but  in  the  triumph  of 
principles. 

"The  virtuous  rest  in  virtue:  the  wise  pursue  it.  The  love  of  it 
is  better  than  the  love  of  beauty.  It  is  not  left  to  stand  alone."3 

"  To  one  who  said,  *  I  believe  in  your  doctrine,  but  my  strength  is 
not  equal  to  it,'  Confucius  replied  :  '  This  would  be  real  weakness  : 
but  you  are  limiting  yourself?  " 4 

But  the  price  of  virtue  cannot  be  evaded. 

"  The  good  mechanic  sharpens  his  tools  :  make  thou  friends  with 
the  best.  Let  an  ignorant  person  be  fond  of  using  his  own  judgment, 
and  calamity  will  befall.  If  what  is  spoken  be  first  determined,  there 
is  no  stumbling:  so  with  affairs.  The  wise  will  never  intermit  his 
labor :  if  another  man  succeeds  with  one  effort,  he  will  use  a 
hundred."  5 

Progress  must  be  gradual.6  Conceit  and  complacency 
are  inexcusable  and  fatal.  "  It  is  better  to  be  mean  than 
insubordinate." 

"  Slow  in  words  and  earnest  in  action.  Act  before  speaking,  and 
then  speak  according  to  your  actions." 7 

Lnnyu,  XII.  20;   II.  7  ;  I.  7  (Tsze-hea);   XIX.  6  (do);  XII.  2  ;  III.  3  ;  XIII.  3- 
Ibid.,  VI.  15;  II.  22.  3  IV.  2;  I.  7  (Tstehea);  IV.  25. 

Ibid.,  VI.  10.  «  Ibid.,  XV.  9;  Chung-yung,  XX.  20. 

Ibid.,  II.  4;  IX.  10 ;  XIX.  7. 
Ibid.,  VII.  35;  IV.  24;  II.  13. 


6O2  SAGES. 

The  impression  that  the  Confucian  philosophy  is  based 
Spontane-  on  self-interest  well  understood,  is  erroneous.  Its 
ily-  highest  motive  is  spontaneity,  love  of  right  for  its 

own  sake,  zeal  for  order,  harmony,  law,  and  growth. 

"  The  mind  of  the  superior  man  is  conversant  with  righteousness  ; 
the  mind  of  the  mean,  with  gain.  They  who  know  truth  are  not  equal 
to  those  who  love  it,  nor  they  who  love  it  to  those  who  delight  in  it. 
I  long  to  see  one  who  loves  virtue  as  he  loves  beauty.  If  one  in  the 
morning  hear  the  right  way,  he  may  without  regret  die  before  night. 
Is  virtue  remote  ?  I  wish  it,  and  it  is  at  hand.  The  good  man  brings 
forth  righteousness  in  humility,  completes  it  in  sincerity,  and  per- 
forms it  according  to  right  order."  ' 

"  What  can  be  made  of  one  who  holds  fast  his  virtue,  without  seek- 
ing to  enlarge  it  ?  "  "A  man  enlarges  his  principles,  not  they  him. 
Leave  not  virtue  without  culture.  Respect  the  promise  of  youth.2 
The  plant  may  stop  at  the  blade  without  flowering ;  at  the  flower  with- 
out fruiting."  "Your  good  careful  people  of  the  villages  are  the 
thieves  of  virtue.1"  3 

Tsze-Tsze's  picture  of  the  ideal  man  is  the  crown  of  Con- 
fucian ethics  :  for  dignity  and  insight  nowhere  surpassed. 

"  He  prefers  concealing  his  virtue,  while  it  daily  grows  more  manifest 
to  others.  He  knows  how  the  distant  is  involved  in  the  near,  and  how 
what  is  minute  becomes  manifest.  He  examines  his  heart,  that  there 
may  be  nothing  wrong  there.  He  is  not  to  be  equalled  in  work  which 
other  men  cannot  see.  The  Book  of  Odes  says,  '  Be  free  from  shame 
in  your  secret  chamber,  where  the  light  of  Heaven  looks  in.  Rever- 
ence appears  in  his  quietness  ;  truth  in  his  silence.  Without  reward 
he  urges  men  to  virtue  ;  without  anger,  he  awes  more  than  weapons 
of  war.'  "  * 

Such  is  man's  relation  to  himself.  Next  comes  his  rela- 
Reiation  tion  to  others.  And  here  the  ethical  criterion  of 
toothers.  tne  Mongolian  is  like  that  of  Kant,  —  universal 
validity. 

1  Lunyu,  IV.  16 ;  VI.  18;  IX.  17;  IV.  8;  VII.  29;  XV.  17. 

2  Ibid.,  XIX.  2  ;  XV.  28  ;  VII.  3  ;  IX.  22.    "  Maxima  debeter  reverentia  puero."  —  Juve- 
nal Sat.,  XIV.  47. 

3  Ibid.,  IX   21 ;  XVII.  13.     This  expression  appears  from  Mencius  (VII.  PT.  H.  37)  to  be 
applied  to  conventionally  moral  and  routine-bound  people,  too  inert  to  feel  any  impulse  to 
progress. 

4  Chung-yung,  XXXIII. 


DOCTRINE    OF    CONFUCIUS.  603 

"  The  superior  man  is  catholic,  not  partisan.  His  virtues  may  be 
practised  among  the  rude  tribes  of  South  and  North  ;  their  absence 
will  be  disapproved,  even  by  his  neighbors.  The  right  way  reaches 
wide  and  far,  yet  it  is  secret ;  open  to  the  lowest  and  least,  yet  con- 
taining what  the  highest  cannot  fully  carry  out."  l 

"  Overflow  in  love  to  all,  and  cultivate  the  friendship  of  the  good." 
"  The  good  man  loves  all  men  ;  loves  to  speak  of  the  good  in  others  ; 
is  loyal  in  friendship  ;  wishing  enlargement  for  himself,  seeks  it  for 
others.  A  superior  man  helps  the  distressed,  but  does  not  add  to  the 
wealth  of  the  rich.  All  within  the  four  seas  are  his  brothers."2 

Confucius  twice  or  thrice  announces  "  the  Golden  Rule  " 
in  its  negative  form.3  Those  who  contrast  this  The  Goid- 
with  the  Christian  exhortation  are  not  apt  to  be  enRule: 

positive 

aware  that  the  Confucian  ethics  also  contain  the  andnega- 
strongest  statements   of   the   rule   in    its  positive  tlveforms- 
form. 

"  To  be  able  to  judge  of  others  by  what  is  in  ourselves  may  be 
called  the  art  of  virtue.  In  the  highest  path  are  four  things  which  I 
have  not  attained,  — to  serve  my  father  as  I  would  have  my  son  serve 
me  ;  my  prince  as  I  would  require  my  minister  to  serve  me  ;  and  my 
elder  brother  as  I  would  wish  my  younger  brother  to  serve  me  ;  and 
to  act  towards  a  friend  as  I  would  have  him  act  towards  me."  4 

Out  of  abundant  special  implications  of  the  principle  of 
putting  oneself  in  another's  place,  we  need  only  mention 
the  precepts  to  love  speaking  well  of  others;  to  hate  the 
proclaiming  of  their  faults  ;  to  hold  back  nothing  from 
friends  ;  to  seek  every  chance  of  helpfulness.5 

Every  virtue  must  proceed  at  once  to  action. 

"Mere  suppression  of  vice  does  not  constitute  virtue.  Can  that  be 
love  which  does  not  lead  to  vigilance  with  its  object  ?  Or  that  loyalty 
which  does  not  lead  to  instruction  of  its  object  ?  "  & 

All  the  five  elements  of  virtue  are  activities,  save  one.7 

Lunyu,  II.  14;   XV.  5;    Chung-yung,  XII.  2. 

Ibid.,  I.  6  ;   XII.  22  ;  XVI.  5  ;   V.  16 ;   VI.  28  ;  VI.  3  !  XII.  5. 

Ibid.,  XII.  2  ;   V.  ii  ;  XV.  23.  4  Ibid.,  VI.  28 ;  Chung-yung,  XIII.  4- 

Ibid.,  XVI.  5;  XVII.  24;   VII.  23;  XVII.  i.  e  Ibid>j  xiV.  2,  8. 

Ibid.,  XVII.  6. 


604  SAGES. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  duties  set  for  the  young.1  Confu- 
cius has  no  quarter  for  negations.  Tsze-loo,  quoting  from 
an  Ode,  —  "he  dislikes  none  ;  he  covets  nothing  ;  what  does 
he  that  is  not  good  ? " —  the  Teacher  said  :  "  These  ways  are 
by  no  means  adequate  to  virtue."  2 

I  hasten  to  add  that  this  famous  "  Rule,"  laid  down  in 
one   or   another  form   by   all    ancient    moralists, 

Defects  J 

of  the        although  intended  to  express  an  unselfish  spirit, 
Ruie"Ts    is  far  fr°m  being  an  adequate  or  even   a   proper 
a  motive     ]aw  for  human  conduct.     It  refers  judgments  to 
personal  desires  only,  which  of  course  must  differ 
according  to  character  as  well  as  knowledge  ;  and  its  ap- 
plication would  make  one's  desires  for  oneself,  whatever 
their  quality,  the  gauge  for  his  treatment  of  other  men. 
A  high  morality  demands,  not  that  we  should  treat  them 
as  we  wish  them  to  treat  us,  but  that  we  should  be  able 
to  rise  above  our  wishes  for  ourselves,  or  even  theirs  for 
themselves,  and  recognize  their  right  to  the  best  treatment 
of  their  situation  and  need,  whether  we  should  wish  for 
\         such  specific  treatment  ourselves  or  not.     If  I  am  selfish, 
and  want  my  greeds  consulted,  shall  I  therefore  gratify 
\- another's  to  his  injury  ?     It  is  obvious  that,  unless  regu- 
^lated  by  a  law  higher  than  itself,  the  "Golden  Rule"  is 
,  made  of  any  metal  quite  as  easily  as  of  gold.     The  Inquis- 

fitor  probably  justified  the  rack  and  stake  by  the  argument 
that  he  would  himself  prefer  being  compelled  into  belief  at 
any  cost,  to  perishing  eternally  for  unbelief.  The  bigot 
applies  to  others  the  law  of  implicit  faith  which  he  believes 
has  saved  himself  from  perdition.  The  "  Golden  Rule  "  will 
never  save  the  world  from  Catholic  despotism  nor  Protest- 
ant bigotry  :  it  is  too  easily  transformed  into  an  organ  of 
persecution.  Nothing  will  sufifice  as  a  rule  of  judgment  in 
the  treatment  of  others,  but  a  wise  insight,  the  fruit  of 
sympathy  and  study,  discerning  real  conditions,  and  rever- 

1  Lunyu,  I.  6.  2  Ibid.,  IX.  26.     See  also  Ibid.  XVII.  7,  22. 


DOCTRINE    OF    CONFUCIUS.  605 

ing  clear  principles  as  a  higher  law  than  personal  tastes 
or  wishes.  A  simplistic  rule  of  square  is  as  likely  to  be 
unjust  to  others  as  to  be  either  noble  or  kind.  The  inap- 
plicability of  such  ideals  to  actual  civilization  is  becoming 
in  many  ways  evident. 

Confucian  philosophy  seeks  to  find  a  higher  principle 
which  shall  give  concrete  .validity  to  morals.  This  is  its 
main  feature,  and  appears  in  the  limitations  with  which 
every  rule  is  guarded.  Its  negative  rule  of  "reciprocity" 
is  no  better  nor  worse  than  the  Christian  form  of  the  same ; 
but  shows,  at  least,  caution  in  approaching  such  a  test  in 
positive  form,  and  shrinks  from  leaving  full  swing  to  the 
judgment  of  another's  needs  by  one's  own  desires.  Con- 
fucius goes  further,  and  supplies  a  body  of  caution-  Caution- 
ary  maxims,  which,  while  seeming  to  limit  the  j^™*" 
humanities,  really  lead  them  in  the  direction  of  Confucius, 
right  practice.  Here  Chinese  prudence  becomes  genuine 
sense  ;  showing  the  close  connection  of  the  ideal  with 
practical  conditions  in  the  mind  of  this  people.  With  the 
faith  of  the  Western  world,  the  ideal  has  been  a  sphere  of 
culture  apart  from  other  spheres  ;  with  the  Chinese  it  is 
identical  with  actual  culture.  It  therefore  demands  right 
balance  and  harmonious  relation,  secured  only  by  positively 
accepting  all  the  human  conditions  with  their  mutual  lim- 
its. Its  ethics  are  for  practical  education. 

Confucius  demurs   at   repaying  injuries  with   the  same 
kindness   with  which   we  return  benefits.     "  With   Return 
what  then  will  you  reward  kindness  ?    Recompense  "JJfj^ 
injury  with  justice"  1     The   human   heart  cannot  tice. 
be   tutored  into  effacing   the  sentiment  of  personal  grati- 
tude.    So  in  communicating  truth,  he  affirms  the  Socratic 
rule  that  differences  of  moral   receptivity  must  be  recog- 
nized.2    War  is  permitted  after  a  people  are  sufficiently 
educated  to  act  intelligently  instead  of  being  thrown  away 

1  Lunyu,  XIV.  36.  «  Ibid,  VI.  19;  XVII.  3?   VII.  8;  IX.  29. 


606  SAGES. 

by  their  rulers.1  The  influence  of  men's  popularity,  or  the 
reverse,  on  the  opinion  we  form  of  them  is  pointed  out  as 
misleading.  "  The  loves  and  hates  of  the  multitude  need 
investigating." 2  All  scrutiny  must  be  in  an  affirmative 
spirit ;  never  losing  respect  for  human  nature,  nor  the  ten- 
derness of  charity  and  faith.3  "  Only  the  virtuous  know 
how  to  love  or  hate."  4  And  Confucian  "  hate  "  is  wholly 
free  from  malice  or  revenge.5 

These  practical  ethics  abound  in  prudential  and  regu- 
Aimat  lative  precepts,  which  pursue  wholeness  and 
balance  of  balance  in  the  character.  Caution  in  speech, 
avoidance  of  friendship  with  men  of  lower  aims, 
of  a  partiality  that  blinds  to  the  qualities  of  others;- 
observance  of  natural  subordinations,  conflicts  of  duty, 
even  restraint  from  an  admiration  of  antiquity  which  hides 
the  demands  of  the  present  time  (a  warning  we  should 
hardly  expect  from  Confucius),  —  are  all  carefully  included 
in  the  limitations  which  are  in  aid  of  a  broader  harmony.6 

Never  were  the  conditions  of  genuine  labor  better  re- 
cognized. 

"  Do  not  seek  to  have   things  done  quickly  ;    nor  look  at  petty 

advantages  ;    nor  speak  forth-puttingly,  lest  you  make  not 

^°onf"    your  words  good.     The  superior  man  does  not  go  out  of  his 

labor.          place.     The  bird  knows  his  resting-place  :  shall  not  a  man  be 

equal  to  this  bird  ?     When  the  archer  misses  the  centre,  he 

1  Lunyu,  XIII.  29,  30.  2  Ibid.,  XIII.  24  ;  XV.  27. 

8  Ibid.,  IV.  7.  4  Ibid.,  IV.  3. 

6  Ibid.,  XIX.  3.  Dr.  Legge's  charge  of  a  malevolent  spirit  in  Confucius,  on  the  strength 
of  a  passage  in  the  Li-ki,  would  have  more  force  if  he  had  given  evidence  of  its  historical  truth 
(Prolegom,  p.  113).  Whether  this  passage,  forbidding  that  one  should  live  under  the  same 
heaven  with  the  slayer  of  his  father,  brother,  or  friend,  be  the  language  of  Confucius  or  of  his 
followers,  it  seems  intended  to  express  that  intense  veneration  for  the  ties  of  kindred  which 
was  the  root  of  Chinese  religion,  and  which  at  that  time  had  no  other  guarantee  than  self-de- 
fence, though  afterwards  embodied  in  the  terrible  severities  of  the  Penal  Code.  As  the  law 
against  parricide  went  on  the  assumption  that  a  crime  so  horrible  was  past  belief,  so  the  pre- 
cept counselling  instant  destruction  of  a  different  class  of  violators  of  those  sacred  ties,  at  the 
hand  of  their  natural  protectors,  makes  a  similar  impression. 

0  Lunyu,  XII.  13;  XIX.  25;  I.  8;  XVI.  4;  Ta-hio,  Comm.  to  VIII.  Striking  parallels 
to  the  rules  of  family  subordination  are  found  in  the  early  maxims  of  the  Hebrews,  Egyptians, 
and  Greeks.  Lunyu,  XIII.  18;  Chung-yung,  XXVIII. 


DOCTRINE    OF    CONFUCIUS.  607 

seeks  the  cause  of  failure  in  himself.  In  whatever  position,  high  or 
low,  he  does  what  is  becoming  to  it  ;  thus  he  never  can  be  where  he 
is  not  himself."  l 

"Perfect  the  virtue  that  is  according  to  the  Constant 
Mean."  The  so-called  "rules  of  propriety"  are,  in  fact, 
rules  of  rigJit  order,  and  concern  the  limits  which  restrain 
a  virtue  from  passing  into  a  vice.  "  To  go  beyond  is  as 
wrong  as  to  fall  short."  Natural  distinctions  in  men  forbid 
equality  of  virtue  :  to  some  it  is  inborn ;  to  others  it  comes 
easily,  to  others  hard  ;  and  some  are  incapable.2 

Patriarchal  relations  are  treated  with  the  same  regard  to 
essential  distinctions  and  positive  instincts.  Filial 

,     f  Moderate 

piety  and  fraternal  submission  are  not  arbitrary,  imerpreta- 
but  rest  on  a  reverence  for  age  which  is  not  in-  tionof 

Patriar- 

compatible  with  remonstrance,  firm  though  modest,  chai  Eth- 
nor  separable  from   gratitude   and    real   apprecia-  1CS' 
tion :   it  must  seek,  by  carrying  out  the  wishes  of  forefath- 
ers, to  forward  their  purposes  with  posterity  ;  and  is  thus 
referred  to  the  sense  of   social  continuity  which  made  it 
a  religion.3 

Confucius  does  not  carry  the  law  of  social  subjection  so 
far  as  most  teachers  of  patriarchal  ethics.4  Of  the  be- 
havior of  younger  to  elder  brothers  he  says  only  that  it 
should'  be  respectful.5  On  woman  he  is  equally  reticent. 
He  calls  a  prince's  wife  his  helpmeet  (foo-jiii)  ;  his  word 
for  wife  means  the  equal  of  her  husband  ;  and  the  Chung- 
yung  makes  him  praise  connubial  harmony  as  the  music  of 
lutes.6  His  few  words  on  education  are  admirable  ;  polite 

1  L unyu,  XIII.  17  ;  XIV.  21,  28.     Ta-hlo,  Comtn.  to  III.  ;  Chnng-yung,  XIV. 

2  Lnnyn,  VI.  27,   16;  VIII.  2;  XVII.  8;    II.   15;   XIII.  20;   XI.    15;    XVI.  9.     Com- 
pare with  these  limitary  precepts  the  Delphic :   "  Of  nothing  too  much."     "  In  haste  is  peril ; 
in  calmness,  beauty"  (Periander).    "  From  what  is  not  within  thy  power  restrain  thy  desire." 
(Epictetus).     "  In  every  thing  avoid  extremes :    beauty  is  right   proportion "   (Phocylides). 

3  Lunyu,  II.  6,  7;   IV.  16-21  :    Chung-yung,  XIX. 

4  Solon  went  so  far  as  to  forbid  saying  any  thing  more  just  than  one's  parents  ;   and  Pitta- 
cus,  as  to  counsel  flattering  them  (Stobaeus). 

6  Lunyit,  I.  6. 

8  Legge  on  XVI.  14;   XVII,  28,  refers  only  to  concubines,  not  to  women  as  such. 


608  SAGES. 

studies,  which  depend  on  leisure  and  opportunity,  should 
come  after  the  graces  of  character.1  "  The  excellence  of  a 
neighborhood  is  in  virtuous  manners."2 

The  Confucian   State  is  an  evolution  of  Mtral  •rder. 

The  Con     That   a   race   apparently   devoid    of    individuality 

fudan        should  refer  the  integrity  of  the  political  sphere 

to  the  self-respect  and  culture  of  its  members  is 

based  on 

individual  remarkable.  We  might  explain  it  by  prudential 
regard  to  its  own  defect  in  this  very  direction  of 
individualism,  were  not  the  perception  so  evidently  intu- 
itive and  organic,  and  held  firmly  in  view  as  the  secret  of 
national  existence.  It  proceeds,  in  fact,  from  the  idea  of 
the  Family  as  the  social  unit,  —  the  basis  of  all  construc- 
tion. The  Chinese  have  not  analyzed  human  values  to 
their  atomic  principles,  any  more  than  resolved  language 
The  Fam  ll}*°  elementarv  sounds ;  and  the  Family  Idea  per- 
iiyideaa  sists  as  a  compound  factor.  But  this  idea  is  made 
^0^^  UP  of  personal  duties.  The  family  depends  on 
rights  and  each  member's  fulfilling  his  own  special  functions  : 
and  thus  the  patriarchal  system  contains  a  power- 
ful germ  of  personal  culture.  The  State  as  its  expansion 
is  thus  a  moral  order,  an  ethical  absolutism,  a  personal  reli- 
gion. Government  is  always  responsible  to  the  self-respect 
and  self-discipline  involved  in  these  personal  relations  :  in 
their  fulfilment  only  is  authority ;  in  their  maintenance 
alone,  success. 

But  while  public  virtues  are  defined  by  the  family  ideal,3 
Duties  the  tne  essential  idea  of  duty  as  such,  involved  in  these 
condition  special  duties,  is  not  forgotten  by  the  best  minds  ; 
of  Rights.  an(j  SQ  Confucius  and  Mencius  state,  in  terms  as 
unqualified  as  any  moralist  has  ever  used,  that  the  right  to 
govern  others  depends  on  the  power  to  govern  self,  and 

1  Lunyu,  I.  6.  *  Ibid.,  IV.  i.  3  Chunt^-yung,  XX, 


DOCTRINE    OF    CONFUCIUS.  609 

refer  the  growth  and  decay  of  States  to  the  facts  of  per- 
sonal character. 

The  Ta-hio  undertakes  to  show  "  what  is  first  and  what 
last."  Its  nucleus,  ascribed  to  Confucius,  is  a  chain 

.  .....       The  Ta-hio. 

ot  sequences,  tracing  the  process  by  which  right 
government  flows  from  the  will  of  the  ruler  to  purify  his 
desires  and  enlighten  his  mind.  Far  from  stopping  at  the 
family  relations,  it  goes  to  the  "  cultivation  of  the  person 
as  the  root  of  every  thing."  1  Here  is  the  "  point  of  rest ;  " 
here  the  inward  peace  that  secures  deliberation  and  suc- 
cess. The  Ta-hio  follows  this  dialectic  of  "  the  Master," 
with  illustrations  from  the  Odes  and  the  ancient  kings.2 

To  ideal  character  Confucius  ascribes  unlimited  powers. 
It  is  everywhere  appreciated  ;  it  will  subdue  bar-  Unlimjted 
barians  ;  its  appeal  will  do  more  than  punishments  powers  of 
to  reform  the  bad  ;  it  settles  strife  by  a  word  ;  it  V1 
finds  all  men  its  brothers.3 

Thus  founded,  a  ruler's  virtue*  is  irresistible.      "  If  his 
desire  be  for  what  is  good,  the  people  will  be  good, 
as  grass  bends  before  the  wind  ;  if  he  is  not  covet- 
ous, they  will  not  even  be  hired  to  steal ;  if  he  loves  right, 
they  will  obey  without  orders.4     Confucius  himself  claims 
that  he  could  perfect  a  government  in  three  years.5     As 
to  the  requisite  period,  he  is  not   always  consistent  with 
himself,  but  the  law  holds  good.6 

It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  these  unlimited  claims 
for  the  power  of  character  in  a  ruler  are  mere  rhet-  significance 
oric.  Confucius  hoped  for  political  good  from  the  oftheidea- 
monarchical  principle  only,  as  affording  adequate  oppor- 
tunity for  the  play  of  moral  powers.  A  fixed  postulate  of 

*  SoLunytt,  XIII.  13. 

2  Such  asT'ang's  inscription  on  his  bathing  tub:  "Renovate  thyself  daily."  See  also 
Chung-yung,  XX. 

»  Ibid  ,  IX.,  13  ;  XV.  5 ;   II.  3  :  XII.  t,  5. 

4  Ibid.,  XII.  18,  19.  "Ruler,  begin  by  ruling  thyself"  (Pittacus) ;  "  Learn  to  obey,  that 
you  may  know  how  to  command"  (Solon). 

«  Ibid.,  XIX.  25;  XIII.  zo.  «  Ibid.,  XIII.  H,  12. 

39 


6lO  SAGES. 

Chinese  life,  it  required,  as  its  justification,  a  capacity  for 
fully  carrying  out  the  righteous  order  of  the  world.  As  a 
relief  from  present  miseries  its  unity  attracted  the  imagi- 
nation of  Confucius,  as  imperialism  did  Dante's  in  the  dis- 
tractions of  Italy  in  his  day.  In  the  petty  States,  abuses 
of  royal  power  forced  on  his  mind  the  conviction  of  its 
corresponding  opportunities  for  good.  He  shrinks  from 
no  consequence  of  h'is  grand  assertion  that  "  to  rectify  is 
to  rule  ;"  in  other  words,  that  only  justice  and  mercy  are 
government,  or  deserve  recognition  as  such.  As  for  the 
bad  ruler  he  has  nothing  but  contempt,  so  for  the  good 
ruler  his  enthusiasm  resembles  that  of  the  Jew  for  his 
Messiah.  Tsze-Tsze's  praise  of  such  a  deliverer  reminds  us 
of  Job's  plea  for  the  powers  and  effects  of  a  noble  life : 

"His  institutions,  rooted  in  his  character,  are  attested  by  his 
people ;  he  compares  them  with  the  ancient  kings,  and  finds  them 
perfect ;  with  the  laws  of  Heaven  and  Earth,  and  finds  them  in  full 
accord  ;  lays  them  before  ancestors,  and  no  doubts  arise.  He  can 
await  the  sage  of  a  hundred  years  to  come  without  misgiving.  His 
acts  are  a  law  for  ages,  and  his  words  a  lesson.  They  who  are  far  off 
long  for  him,  and  they  who  are  near  bless  him.  '  From  day  to  day 
and  from  night  to  night  will  men  perpetuate  his  praise.'  "  l 

These  tributes  to  the  power  of  virtue  aim  to  centre  the 
imperial-  traditional  loyalty  to  patriarchal  institutions  in  a 
ism  of  single  type  of  national  unity.  The  constant  quar- 
rel of  Confucius  was  with  the  princes  who  broke 
in  fragments  this  common  loyalty,  and  his  literary  task  was 
to  rehabilitate  the  ideal  monarchy.  "  When  bad  govern- 
ment prevails,  regulations  proceed  from  the  princes  ;  when 
good,  from  the  Emperor."  2  Yet  his  appreciation  went  be- 
hind this  imperial  policy,  and  he  could  do  justice  to  the 
virtues  of  even  the  feudal  chiefs.3 

His  body  of  precepts  for  the  guidance  of  rulers  is  unsur- 
Precepts  passed  in  the  history  of  political  ethics,  and  holds 
for  miers  as  timely  for  the  imperialism  of  a  Western  people 

1  Chung-yung,  XXIX.  2  Lunyu,  XVI.  2.  *  Ibid.,  XIV.  18. 


i     -, 

DOCTRINE   OF    CONFUCIUS.  M/    j5l»**<9  > 


to-day  as  for  that  of  an  Eastern  patriarch  before  the 
tian  era  :  — 

"  Let  there  be  men,  and  government  will  flourish  ;  without  men  it 
decays."  "  Its  administration  is  in  securing  proper  men  by  means  of 
the  ruler's  own  character,  following  the  paths  of  duty  and  good-will, 
advancing  the  good  men  and  setting  the  bad  aside.  The  good  ruler 
does  not  expect  in  one  man  talents  for  every  employment.  The  good 
officer  fulfils  his  function  with  modesty,  and  does  not  meddle  with  an- 
other's. Banish  the  songs  of  Ch'ing  (immorality),  and  keep  specious 
talkers  afar  off.  From  of  old  death  is  the  lot  of  all  men  ;  but  if  the 
people  have  no  confidence  in  their  rulers  the  State  is  at  an  end."  * 

The  Chung-yung  lays  down  nine  duties  for  the  ruler  : 
self-cultivation,  family  affection,  respect  for  high  officials, 
honor  to  talent  and  virtue,  a  generous  confidence,  good 
pay,  and  kind  regard  to  all  officers  ;  light  imposts  and  as 
little  official  interference  with  the  people  as  possible  ; 
encouragement  of  labor,  hospitality  to  foreigners,  and  fur- 
therance of  the  best  interests  of  the  State.2  The  four 
signs  of  bad  government  are,  —  to  put  to  death  those  you 
have  left  in  ignorance,  to  exact  sudden  press  of  work  with- 
out warning,  to  make  sudden  change  from  loose  to  extreme 
execution  of  laws,  and  to  give  niggardly  pay.3  "Do  not 
slay  the  bad  for  the  sake  of  the  good."  "  The  commander 
of  a  great  army  may  be  carried  off,  but  the  will  of  a 
common  man  cannot  be  forced."  4 

The  childish  submission  of  the  people  implied  in  some 
of  these  rules  is  balanced  by  the  emphatic  charge  Rights  of 
to  consult  their  wishes  and  respect  their  good-will,  the  people. 
Their  "  submission,"  only  to  be  had  by  right  treatment, 
signifies  that  religious  loyalty  with  which  the  Chinese 
regards  this  political  'order,  recognized  by  all  as  the  true 
one.  The  assertion  that  under  a  good  ruler  "  there  will  be 
no  discussions  among  the  people,"  far  from  being  intended 

1  Chting-yung,  XX.     Lttnyu,  II.  19,  20;  XVIII.  10  ;  XIV.  27-29;  XV.  10  ;  XII.  7. 
*  Chung-yting,  XX.  12.  3  Lunyu,  XX.  2. 

4  Ibid.,  XII.  19;  IX.  25.  '*!  cannot  admit  that  as  a  law  which  a  tyrant  enacts  contrary 
to  the  will  of-the  people"  (Pericles,  according  to  Xenophon,  Mentor.  I.  2). 


6l2  SAGES. 

to  enjoin  passive  obedience,  which  is  not  a  Chinese  idea,1 
declares  the  entire  capacity  of  the  masses  to  discern  when 
they  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  their  rulers  and  when  to 
oppose  them. 

A  true  statesman,  while  always  seeking  to  take  the  op- 
ideaiofthe  portunities  of  office  when  his  private  dignity  and 
statesman,  conscience  are  respected,  retires  when  he  finds  he 
cannot  stem  the  tide  of  evil.2  When  a  country  is  ill- 
governed,  riches  and  honor  are  things  to  be  ashamed  of.3 
The  "concealment"  of  himself,  enjoined  as  his  duty  in 
such  times,  does  not  mean  hiding  from  duty,  but  simply 
the  self-respect  that  refuses  to  derive  emolument  from 
ruinous  policies  by  which  the  power  of  a  bad  ruler  will 
overbear  all  that  his  ministers  can  do  to  resist  him.  And 
the  come-outer  must  hold  his  principles,  even  to  death.4 
There  was  ground  for  such  counsels  in  the  experience  of 
Confucius,  if  ever  in  any  one's.  Nothing  can  be  stronger 
than  his  pictures  of  the  rise  of  petty,  base  men  to  power, 
the  absence  of  opportunity  for  the  wise  and  good.5  Yet 
so  far  was  he  from  abandoning  the  times  by  any  unworthy 
self-concealment,  that  he  was  pointed  out  even  by  friends 
as  the  man  who  was  expecting  to  stop  a  deluge  or  save  the 
incurable.6  And  here  we  touch  the  last  great  question  : 
How  is  man  related  to  the  Whole  ? 

The  Confucian  philosophy  allows  no  gulf  between  per- 
iii.  Reia-  sonal  conviction  and  public  conduct,  ideas,  and 
whok the  institutions.  Its  doctrine  of  an  "  all-pervading 
"Unity"  Unity"  7  is  interpreted  by  the  words  "centre  heart 
StatoTand  as  neart  5  "  meaning  the  inmost  of  man  as  the  bond 
world.  Of  each  with  all.  This  unity  is  the  universality  of 
principles,  and  embraces  under  one  law  the  Person,  the 

1  Lunyu,  II.  19  ;  XVI.  2  ;  XIII.  15  ;  XIV.   23  ;  VII.  14-     Legge's  Prokgom,  p.  40 ; 
yu,  V.  22;  XVIII.  2. 

2  Ibid.,  XVII.  i,  5;  XVIII.  3.  3  Ibid.,  VIII.  13.  *  Chung-yung,  X 
"  Lunyu,  XI 1 1.  20;  V.  6,26;  XVII.  n  ;  III.  26;  XIV.  25;  VI.  14;  XIV.  37,  38- 

6  Ibid.,  XIV.  41  ;  XVIII.  6.  7  IV.  15.;    XV.  2. 


DOCTRINE    OF    CONFUCIUS.  613 

State,  and  the  World.  Unity,  the  highest  aim  of  religious 
philosophy  in  all  races,  rests,  for  Confucius,  on  purely  ethi- 
cal and  practical  grounds  and  their  application  to  every 
sphere.1  He  even  escapes  the  dualism  of  the  Yin  and 
Yang,  which  runs  through  almost  all  Chinese  conceptions. 
This  'was  the  necessity  of  moral  earnestness,  which  pre- 
cludes any  thing  like  internal  schism,  a  rent  and  divided 
will.  "  The  secret  of  the  whole  way  of  Heaven  and  Earth 
is  that  they  are  without  doubleness."  2 

To  this  end  Nature,  physical  and  human,  must  be  essen- 
tially  trustworthy  and    sound.      In  all  times  and   Trugt 
races  the  highest  culture  has  been  marked  by  re-  worthiness 
spect  for  the  name  of  Nature,  till  this  name  has 
become  at  last  the  keyword  to  the  grand  synthesis 


of  science  and  religion.  Here  Confucius  is  abreast 
of  the  foremost.  He  knows  no  natural  impotence  for 
good  ;  no  split  in  the  foundations  of  the  spiritual  con- 
sciousness, making  them  a  contradiction  and  a  fraud.  Man 
can  reach  virtue,  because  it  is  his  inmost  law  and  his  unal- 
terable relation  to  the  universe.3  All  the  Confucian  virtues 
are  natural  ones.  The  "  rules  of  propriety"  (//')  are  man's 
accord  with  the  nature  of  things.  They  are  to  be  pursued 
with  a  natural  ease.4  "  Virtue  harmonizes  with  the  courses 
of  the  seasons,  which  know  no  collision."  5  It  flows  with 
ease  in  the  currents  of  government  as  if  they  were  made  for 
it.  It  is  in  such  sympathy  with  the  inner  movement  of 
natural  laws,  that  the  good  man  has  no  dependence  on  any 
thing  or  being  apart  from  himself.  "  Call  him  Heaven, 
call  him  the  Deep."  6 

In  other  words,  as  Christianity  asserts  Fatherhood,  so 

1  Lunyu,  IV.  15.  »  Ckung-yung,  XXVI.  7. 

3  Lunyu,  XIII.  27  ;  XVII.  6  ;  XII.  2  ;  XIII.  19  ;  V  I.  28.  "  We  can  free  ourselves  from 
evil"  (Democritus  in  Stob.,  Eel.  II.  ix).  "  It  is  not  difficult  for  man  to  be  good"  (^schines 
in  Ibid.,  II.  viii.  26).  "  Live  according  to  Nature,  and  you  shall  never  want"  (Epicur.  in 
Seneca,  Lett  xvi).  "  Nature  is  good  and  self-consistent.  Not  to  warder  from  the  nature  of 
things,  and  to  be  formed  according  to  its  law  and  example,  is  wisdom"  (Seneca  de  Vit.  Beat., 
3,  8).  *  Lunyu,  XII.  i,  2  ;  I.  12.  c  Chnng-yung,  XXIX. 

«  Lunyu,  XV.  4:   VIII.  18  ;  XIX.  25  ;  Ckung-yung,  XXXII. 


614  SAGES. 

Confucian  faith  is  in  the  Wisdom,  Order,  Benignity  of  Right- 
eous Cosmical  Laws,  and  in  man's  essential  unity  there- 
with. This  "unity"  resembles  that  of  Xenophanes,  who 
Greek  insisted  on  the  harmony  of  the  universe,  and  sub- 
analogues,  stituted  laws  of  nature  and  society  for  special  idola- 
tries. But  Confucius  has  a  distincter  conception  of  the 
difference  of  unity  from  totality,  more  like  Parmenides,  the 
further  unfolder  of  the  Elean  philosophy  ;  and  through  his 
purely  ethical  basis  reaches  a  clearer  idea  of  unity  in  Nature 
than  the  Greek  mind.  One  knows  not  which  to  admire 
most,  the  purity  of  these  ethics  or  their  affirmative  spirit. 

The  Chung-yung1  presents  this  unity  in  its  human  norm, 
The  Tao,  as  "  equilibrium  of  the  faculties  and  feelings."  This 
or  true  is  the  Tao  (true  path),  "pursued  through  benevo- 
lence;" "not  to  be  left  for  an  instant;"  it  is  our 
proper  nature ;  and  "  if  sought  afar  from  common  con- 
sciousness it  is  not  found."  2  It  is  intuitive :  "  the  supe- 
rior man  does  not  wait  till  he  sees  things,  to  be  cautious  ; 
nor  till  he  hears  things,  to  apprehend." 3  It  makes  the 
utmost  of  the  powers,  moulding  their  action  on  love,  and 
brings  remote  spheres  into  right  order  by  rightly  managing 
near  ones.4  This  principle  of  conduct  is  called  also  CJiing. 
Tsze-Tsze  describes  it  as  interchangeable  with  intelligence, 
self-completion,  end  and  beginning  ;  the  infinite  in  man, 
manifest  without  show,  working  without  effort,  divining  the 
future,  and  everlasting.5  That  a  better  translation  must 
be  found  for  a  term  which  signifies  all  this  than  sincerity, 
is  obvious.  Pauthier  and  Remusat  call  it  "  the  perfect "  or 
"  the  pure."  But  if  we  bring  together  the  fragments  of 

1  The  Chung-yung  (Invariable  Mean),  mentioned  as  part  of  the  Li-ki  as  far  back  as  the 
Han,  has  high  reputation  as  a  record.  Its  style  is  different  from  the  Lunyu,  consisting  of 
enchained  propositions  and  logical  sequences,  whose  subtle  shades  of  meaning  evidently  defy 
translation. 

-  Chuiig-yunz,  I.  xiii.-xx.     "The  word  is  nigh  thee,  even  in  thy  mouth  "  (O.  T.). 

3  Chung-yung,  I. 

4  Chung-yung,  XIII.  3,  4  ;  XX.  17.   "  Thou  hast  been  faithful  in  few  things,  I  will  make 
thee  ruler  over  many  things"  (N.  T.). 

«  Chung-yung,  XXL,  XXV.,  XXVI.,  XXIV. 


DOCTRINE    OF    CONFUCIUS.  615 

the  definition,  it  can  mean  no  less  than  the  normal  move- 
ment of  human  faculties  in  those  natural  channels  which 
represent  their  harmony  with   each  other  and  their  unity 
with   Universal  Order.      This,  in  a   moral  sense,  Meaning 
would  be  "  sincerity,"  but  it  would  be  vastly  more  ;  of  the 

term  trans- 
even  the  inherent  sanity  of  human  nature,  and  its   lated  "sin- 

accord  with  the  infinite  and  eternal.  Why  Dr.  c 
Legge  should  call  this,  or  any  aspiration  to  this,  a  "  fig- 
ment," except  from  theological  preconceptions,1  it  is  not 
easy  to  see.  All  aspiration  in  man  depends  on  such  faith 
in  normal  relations  between  the  soul  and  the  Whole.  And 
the  Chinese  CJiing  is  confessedly  no  less  than  the  ideal 
of  personal  wholeness  or  integrity,  as  the  motive  of  con- 
duct and  the  result  of  steadfast  culture  "  of  the  shoots 
of  goodness  .in  one's  own  being."2  Nowhere  is  it  pre- 
tended that  its  attainment  is  possible  but  upon  these 
conditions.3 

The  defect  of  the  Chinese  method  is  obviously  opposite 
to  that  of  the  Hindu,  and  consists  in  not  holding  Contrast 
abstract  ideas  firmly  enough  to  study  them  apart  ^^H"^ 
from  the  concrete,  as  the  other  consists  in  an  in-  tendencies, 
ability  to  escape  them.     As  a  religion,  the  Confucian  prin- 
ciples  may  be  contrasted  in   the  same  way  with  Christi- 
anity, as  identifying  the  ideal  too  closely  with  a  prescribed 
embodiment,  while  the  Christian  ideal  was  constructed  with 
such  entire  isolation  from  the  actual  world,  that  it  could  not 
and  cannot  be  embodied  at  all.     Although  Confucius  ex- 
presses so  clearly  the  theory  of  virtue,  we  observe  Absorption 
that  its  contents  are  never  for  a  moment  separated  ofcon- 
from  patriarchal  institutions  as  the  mould  of  social  patriarch- 
life.     This,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  tragedy  of  his  allsm> 

1  Dr.  Collie  says  "the  Chung-yung does  not  contain  a  single  direction  how  guilty  man  may 
recover  the  favor  and  image  of  his  Creator."    But  we  may  observe  that  what  it  does  pursue  is 
a  matter  of  highest  moment,  for  which  Dr.  Collie's  doctrine  of  salvation  provides  no  direction 
whatever. 

2  Chung-yung,  XXIII.,  XXVII.  s  Ibid.,  XXII. 


6l6  SAGES. 

career.  His  real  universality  was  forced  into  a  special 
channel,  whose  limits  prevented  its  evolution.  Morality 
and  politics  were  not  separated  even  as  ideas,  evven  as 
soul  and  body.  They  could  not  be  seen  in  those  mutual 
relations  in  which  progress  consists.  Morality  must  be  a 
free,  self-evolving  idea;  forced  into  organizations,  it  may 
help  them  endure  and  bear  fruit  ;  but  lacking  growth  in 
its  aims  and  disciplines,  it  will  feed  on  self-complacency 
till  it  stiffens  these  very  moulds  into  mechanism  and 
dead  pretence. 

But  these  inferences  must  not  be  run  too  far.  A  people 
generates  its  method  out  of  its  own  needs.  The  mechani- 
cal results  of  organization  in  Western  life  are  due  largely 
to  a  demoralizing  choice,  constantly  going  on,  in  which  a 
higher  conscience  conforms  to  a  lower.  In  China,  the 
whole  conscience  being  embodied  in  these  ancestral 
moulds,  they  embody  the  ever-living  loyalty  and  religious 
faith  of  the  people.  Hence  the  venerable  civilization  in 
which  they  issued. 

It  is  moreover  unjust  to  represent  Confucius  as  laying 
NO  doc-  down  a  doctrine  of  inertia. .  The  precise  contrary 
trine  of  is  shown  in  passages  already  quoted.1  To  these 
we  may  add  his  tribute  to  Tsze-Yuen  :  "  I  saw  his 
constant  advance ;  I  never  saw  him  stop." 2  Tsze-Tsze 
ascribes  to  him  strong  warnings  against  neglecting  the 
present  time  out  of  reverence  for  the  past.3  Tsze-hea  says 
that  "he  who  daily  recognizes  what  he  has  not  yet,  and 
forgets  not  what  he  has,  attained,  may  be  said  to  love 
learning."  4 

It  is  not  claimed  that  such  passages  should  be  strained 

sense  of     to  tne  effect  of  contradicting  that  appeal  to  the 

continuity    supposed  past  as  a  fixed  ideal,  which  is  of  course 

the  prevailing  spirit  of  Confucian  teaching.     But 

1  Lunyu,  XIX.  2  ;  XV.  28;  VII.  3  ;  IX.  21,  22  ;  XVII.  13.  2  Ibid.,  IX.  20. 

8  Chung-yung,  XXVIII.  «  Lunyu,  XIX.  5. 


DOCTRINE    OF    CONFUCIUS.  6l/ 

they  show  that  hostility  to  progress  beyond  the  actual 
present,  is  no  part  of  that  spirit.  Its  conservatism,  too, 
has  this  merit,  that  it  does  not  attempt  the  insane  project 
of  reconstructing  society  ab  initio,  by  edict  and  on  the  mo- 
ment, in  disregard  of  the  continuities  of  all  human  history. 
There  is,  as  we  have  seen,  no  pure  destructiveness  even 
in  Chinese  rebellions.  Of  this  respect  for  the  inevitable 
heredity  in  ideas,  manners,  and  institutions  as  a  germ  of 
true  political  science  we  have  already  spoken,  and  have 
here  only  to  suggest  its  bearing  on  the  actual  intercourse 
of  races  as  a  part  of  the  science  of  religion. 

They  who  fear  the  intrusion  of  Chinese  "fetichism  "  into 
"  Christian  civilization  "  have  hardly  observed  that  Contrast 
this    naturalistic   faith   in    social  continuity  is   far 
more  favorable  to  progress,  in  an  age  like  ours, 
than    that    ideal   of   catastrophe   and   interference  trophe 
which  has  hid  from  Christianity  for  so  many  ages  its  own 
historical  origin  and  real  antecedents. 

The  Confucian  method  has  a  scientific  element  in  facing 
the  facts  of  natural  order  directly  and  without  reser-  scientific 
vation  of  miracle.  History,  culture,  institutions  '^"nese 
are  all,  for  it,  purely  natural  products,  and  hence  thought, 
so  far  are  fair  fields  of  scientific  study.  Confucius  even 
directed  the  passion  for  divination,  as  centred  in  the  Y-king 
system  of  numbers  and  relations,  into  lines  of  accordance 
with  real  nature  and  life.  He  emphasized  the  laws  of  ethical 
sequence  and  the  inherence  of  effect  in  cause  ;  and  substi- 
tuted the  independence  of  principles  for  outside  personal 
caprice,  whether  conceived  as  intruding  demonic  or  divine 
volitions  into  the  order  of  Nature.  All  the  powers  ascribed 
by  fetichism  to  spiritual  beings  he  absorbed  in  that  intrinsic 
"  harmony  "  of  the  world,  of  which  eternal  principles  of  right 
are  the  secret.  The  absence  of  supernatural  sanctions,  of 
motives  drawn  from  another  life,  the  reference  of  virtue  and 
knowledge  to  their  own  authority  and  self-evidence  as  ra- 


6l8  SAGES. 

tional  and  becoming,  are  so  many  signs  of  a  conception  of 
invariable  law  organically  fixed  in  the  mind  of  this  race, 
though  as  yet  limited  from  various  causes  to  an  imperfect 
view  of  the  order  of  Nature  itself.  They  are  thus  prepared 
to  appreciate  the  stage  of  science  at  which  we  now  stand, 
much  better  than  great  portions  of  the  populations  educated 
in  the  theology  of  the  Church.  Who  should  more  readily 
seize  the  scientific  principle  of  evolution  than  those  rational- 
ists who  have  already  evolved  their  ethics  out  of  human 
nature,  and  their  political  institutions  out  of  human  ethics, 
and  their  conception  of  the  cosmos  out  of  inherent  prin- 
ciples of  order  identical  with  those  which  flow  in  human 
virtues  and  powers  ?  What  they  need  can  only  be  the  new 
material,  which  will  alter  the  form  of  that  conception  with- 
out changing  its  spirit. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  the  picture.  Prescribed  sys- 
Prescribed  terns  and  routines  are  fatal  to  progress  in  science 
ethical  ancj  art  Tne  attitude  of  obligation  and  predeter- 
Theiref-  mined  feeling  absolutely  excludes  the  pure  love  of 
feet  on  art,  Beauty  and  truth.  The  Chinese  temperament  is 

science, 

andreii-  unsuited  to  contemplation,  and  depends  on  obser- 
gion>  vation  of  things  rather  than  on  the  continued  study 
of  principles.  In  this  respect  Confucius  has  been  its  repre- 
sentative rather  than  its  reformer.  The  Hebrews  failed  of 
art  and  science  from  a  similar  inability  to  separate  the  ideal 
from  moral  prescriptions,  though  these  prescriptions  were 
of  a  religious  rather  than  political  nature,  and  centred,  in 
later  times  at  least,  in  an  authoritative  church  and  canon. 
Distinctive  Christianity  has  shown  a  similar  antagonism  to 
science  and  art,  in  so  far  as  it  has  absorbed  the  ideal  ele- 
men-t  in  theological  dogma,  in  commandments  and  sanctions 
by  an  external  will. 

Confucianism  escapes  these  reefs  of  theological  prescrip- 
tion ;  and  there  are  foundations  for  science  in  its  idea  of 
inherent  order,  and  for  art  in  its  love  of  harmony,  limit,  and 


DOCTRINE    OF    CONFUCIUS. 

relation,  as  well  as  for  religion  in  its  reverence  for  ethical 
perfection,  for  culture,  for  humanity.  But  natural  science 
and  fine  art  find  no  place  in  the  teachings  of  Confucius  ; 
nor  does  religion  attain  a  fully  self-conscious  freedom. 
These  aspirations  of  sentiment  and  reason  are  confined 
within  certain  lines  of  personal  and  social  duty.  A  few 
ever  repeated  formulas  of  method,  subordination,  prudential 
policy,  .official  behavior,  and  proper  intercourse  between 
classes  of  persons  constitute  the  staple  of  these  prescribed 
moulds  of  doctrine.  We  find  large  affirmations  of  essential 
right  and  spiritual  law  ;  but  we  miss  aesthetic  emotion  and 
intellectual  fire ;  we  miss  the  flight  of  imagination  in  free 
space,  the  study  of  thought  and  things  as  possibilities  of 
new  and  unexpected  truth.  With  political  institutions  in 
constant  view,  and  reference  to  official  life  as  the  great  end 
of  existence,  there  is  yet  no  thrill  of  patriotic  passion,  nor 
ardor  of  progress  in  political  wisdom,  nor  prescience  of  dis- 
covery. All  is  attained  :  the  infinite  unknown  absorbed 
in  the  definitely  known  and  organically  applied.  It  is  in 
this  respect  the  nominalism  of  the  positivist,  which  treats 
ideas  as  pure  phrase  and  name  except  in  so  far  as  they  are 
embodied  for  the  understanding,  and  ignores  the  trans- 
cendental faculty,  the  step  beyond  experience,  wherein  are 
freedom,  prophecy,  and  progress. 

Ignores  in  theory,  yet  never  quite  escapes  in  practice  ; 
since  even  positivism  takes  that  step  beyond  ex-  Transcen- 
perience,  in  the  very  conception  of  invariable  law  ^glt  in 
on  which  it  rests.  And  the  Confucian  philosophy  Positivism. 
is  not  without  its  hints  of  analogous  capacity,  especially  in 
its  ethical  basis.  For  principles  in  their  very  nature  tran- 
scend the  limits  of  definite  experience  or  observation.  It 
is  impossible  wholly  to  confine  the  meaning  of  a  moral  pre- 
cept within  the  scope  of  prescribed  and  definite  duties. 
The  idea  "  /  ought "  has  a  primal  absolute  quality  as  intui- 
tion, which  not  only  exalts  the  acts  to  which  it  is  specially 


62O  SAGES. 

applied  with  universal  meaning,  but  as  a  principle  of  con- 
duct looks  beyond  them  towards  infinite  sanctions  for  the 
whole  conduct  of  life. 

It  is  this  ethical  element,  whose  peculiar  force  in  Chinese 
Mind  an-  thought  may  be  relied  on  to  counteract  the  defects 
controlling  just  suggested.  The  absolute  form  of  its  state- 
fudaT  ment  in  Confucius  is  itself  a  guard  against  the 
system.  oncsidedncss  of  evolutionism,  as  held  by  many 
modern  scientists  who  reject  the  idea  of  the  infinite,  and 
seek  to  explain  mind,  the  universal  form  of  knowledge  itself, 
as  a  temporal  and  final  product  of  matter  by  laws  of  descent 
alone.  The  positivist  school  of  Comte  lay  claim,  in  some 
respects  justly,  to  the  Chinese  mind  as  embraced  within 
their  sphere.1  Of  this  we  shall  speak  more  fully  hereafter. 
But  we  note  in  Confucius  a  predominance  of  those  aspects 
of  mind  which  present  it  as  all-controlling  in  the  natural 
world  ;  such  as  the  subordination  of  the  universe  to  intelli- 
gence and  virtue,  whose  all-productive  energy  is  its  spring 
and  its  motive  power  ;  and  that  spontaneous  perception  of 
the  Tao  (Reason)  by  human  faculty,  through  which  man  is 
proved  one  with  the  order  of  the  whole.  These  are  obvious 
signs  of  recognizing  the  intuitive  and  infinite  aspects  of 
mind. 

By  the  time  of  Confucius,  the  Divine  had  come  to  be 
expressed  by  thinkers  as  Tien  (Heaven),  rather 
giouscon-  than  as  Shang-te  (Supreme  Ruler)  ;  a  natural  re- 
ceptions. su]j.  o£  ^g  strongly  concrete  form  of  their  concep- 
tions. The  great  sages  give  ample  proof  that  the  change 
not  only  involved  no  loss  to  the  moral  and  religious  ele- 
ments, but  even  brought  a  more  positive  assertion  of  them. 
Confucius  always  speaks  of  "  Heaven  "  with  a  reverence 
and  trust  which  certainly  approaches  very  nearly  the  inti- 
macy of  personal  relation.  His  favorite  theme  of  an  all- 

1  The  positivist  side  of  Confucian  philosophy  is  presented  by  Lafitte,  Considerations 
Gin.  de  la  Civil.  Chin.  (Paris,  1861). 


DOCTRINE    OF    CONFUCIUS.  621 

pervading  moral  unity  could  hardly  mean  less  than  central 
intelligence,1  especially  in  one  whose  whole  philosophy 
claims  for  mind  the  mastery  of  things.  We  need  but 
instance  his  definition  of  the  ethical  laws,  of  nature,  of 
human  destiny,  as  "  the  ordinances  "  of  Heaven,2  and  of 
prayer  as  a  constant  communion  with  its  spiritual  powers  ;3 
his  recognition  of  his  own  function  of  fulfilling  its  purpose 
and  desire  ; 4  and  the  utterance  of  his  feeling  of  its  divine 
sympathy  as  of  one  conscious  of  his  good  intent.5  Dr.  Fa- 
ber  thinks  6  that  in  this  faith  "  no  helping  hand  is  reached 
out  from  above,  no  reviving  breath  inspires  the  fainting  pow- 
ers." It  seems  to  me  the  admitted  language  and  life  of  Con- 
fucius give  evidence  of  both.  And  how  should  so  manifest 
a  sense  of  harmony  with  the  inmost  purpose  and  meaning  of 
life  be  ineffectual  to  sustain  its  apostle,  merely  because  not 
clothed  in  the  intense  objectivity  of  the  Shemitic  or  Roman 
religious  ideal  ? 

Has  not  the  time  come  for  escaping,  in  our  own  thought 
of  the  Infinite,  that  traditional  definiteness  of  objective 
conception  which  ignores  the  essential  fact  that  it  is  at 
once  the  substance  of  the  soul  itself,  and  the  immeasurable- 
ness  of  being  in  which  we  dwell  ?  We  shall  thus  prepare 
for  the  swift  and  sure  passing  away  of  all  anthropomorphic 
theories,  by  believing  it  possible  to  find  inspiration  as  well 
as  strength  in  receiving  the  harmonies  and  interpreting 
the  discords  of  the  world  simply  in  the  light  of  a  lofty 
faith  in  life  itself,  without  positing  their  inmost  spirit  in 
any  distinctive  object  either  without  us  or  within,  beyond 
their  own  practical  meaning  as  light,  righteousness,  and 
love.  This  attitude  itself  will,  I  am  persuaded,  bring  us 
into  better  understanding  of  the  great  forms  of  human  faith 

1  Lunyn,  IV.  15  ;  XV.  2.     See  especially  for  relation  between  intelligence  and  the  virtue 
that  makes  man  one  with  Heaven,  Chung-yung,  XX.,  XXI. 
»  Lunyu,  XX.  3;  XVI.  8 ;  Chung-yung,  XIV. 
»  Lunyu,  VII.  34.  4  Ibid.,  IX.  5. 

•  Ibid.,  XIV.  38.  °  Lehrbegriffd.  Confucius,  p.  9. 


622  SAGES. 

most  unlike  those  conceptions  in  which  we  have  hitherto 
been  trained. 

Nor  do  I  see  that  the  force  of  the  Confucian  ethics  is 
destroyed  by  the  absence  of  sanctions  drawn  from  a  future 
life.1  The  power  of  an  ethical  system  depends  mainly  on 
the  intensity  with  which  it  perceives  and  states  the  law  of 
duty,  and  insists  on  the  present  as  the  real  retributive 
centre  for  the  inward  life.  Dr.  Faber  allows  that  "  the  sum 
of  the  Confucian  precepts  is,  '  Be  ye  perfect,'  though  not, 
'as  your  Father  in  Heaven  is  perfect.'  "  2  Yet  so,  they  would 
add,  as  to  "  form  one  life  with  earth  and  heaven ;  a  har- 
mony of  principles  in  which  the  whole  world  shall  be  re- 
newed and  blest."  3 

We  have  now  to  indicate  the  practical  influence  of 
Confucius,  —  his  function  in  developing  the  institutions 
of  modern  China. 

i  Lehrbegr.  d.  Conf.  p.  13.        2  Lehrbegr.,  p.  14-        3  Ckung-yung,  XXII.,  XXXI.,  3. 


IV. 


INFLUENCE    OF    CONFUCIUS. 


INFLUENCE     OF    CONFUCIUS. 


H 


ISTORY  is  not  woven  by  the  master  hand  of  any 

man,  however  gifted.     Not  even  its  pattern  special 
is  foreseen.     It  is  the  lot  of  every  one  who  expects  plan  and 

,.  r  ,  prophecy 

to  renovate  society  by  the  immediate  force  of  a  always  a 
special  doctrine  or  plan,  of  whatever  ideal  value,  to  f: 
be  proved  in  so  far  a  false  prophet.  Jesus  imagined  that 
the  coming  religious  changes  of  his  time  were  to  be 
effected  by  destruction  of  the  visible  and  social  world,  and 
his  own  return  in  the  clouds  of  judgment  within  that  gen- 
eration. Buddha  expected  to  conquer  Brahminism  on  the 
soil  of  India  by  missionary  efforts.  Plato  in  Greece,  and 
Pythagoras  in  Italy,  hoped  to  carry  ideal  politics  against 
the  current  of  their  times  by  carefully  modelled  institu- 
tions, set  forth  in  writing  or  positive  laws.  Mahomet  be- 
gan with  preaching  his  sweeping  monotheism  in  the  form 
of  peace  and  good-will.  The  legend  of  Moses  makes  him 
break  his  first  tables  of  the  Law  in  despair  of  his  people, 
and  betake  himself  to  a  code  which  falsified  his  plan  of 
making  all  of  them  priests  and  kings.  In  our  great  mod- 
ern revolutions,  the  veto  of  Nature  on  all  expectations  of 
doctrinaires  as  to  the  special  way  in  which  social  wrongs 
are  to  be  abolished,  has  been  signal  and  decisive.  The 
secret  of  historical  method  is  impenetrable.  Every  one  of 

40 


626  SAGES. 

these  prophets  saw  a  great  coming  light ;  but  not  one  of 
them  knew  how  it  was  to  be  kindled,  and  their  ideal  wis- 
dom was  borne  along  folded  in  practical  delusions.  None 
the  less  honor  to  them  for  fidelity  to  the  idea.  We  but 
mark  the  positive  law. 

The  political  centralization  which  Confucius  pursued  as 
in  case  of  the  remedy  for  his  times  was  destined  to  be  accom- 
Confudus.  pKshed ;  but  not  in  his  day,  nor  in  the  way  he 
proposed.  Had  he  foreseen  that  it  would  have  been  pre- 
ceded by  the  persecution  of  his  followers  and  the  burning 
of  his  books,  the  tragedy  of  his  life  would  have  been 
heightened.  One  recalls  what  Luther  said,  looking  back 
on  his  early  dreams  of  church  reformation  :  "  If  I  had 
known  what  enemies  men  are  to  the  truth,  I  should  inevi- 
tably have  held  my  peace."  Confucius  would  have  put  his 
own  experience  differently  from  this  ;  but  it  contained 
much  that  was  analogous.  The  long  anarchy  which  was 
to  work  out  the  conditions  of  national  unity  was  pre- 
figured in  the  bitter  disappointments  of  his  ministerial 
plans,  and  the  failure  of  his  official  career.  Yet,  after  all, 
the  life  of  Confucius  was  perhaps  the  most  wonderful 
success  on  record. 

His  plan  of  organization  was  a  failure.  His  unorganized 
His  unor-  influence  took  effect  in  a  social  element,  whose 
woriTsuc-  growth  would  probably  have  astonished  him  be- 
cessfui.  yond  measure,  and  from  which  flowed  ultimately 
some  of  the  best  qualities  of  actual  Chinese  civilization. 

The  function  of  Confucius  in  Chinese  history  is  this  : 
His  definite  He  gave  clear  and  positive  form  to  the  ethical  prin- 
function.  cip}e  of  faQ  traditions,  and  by  his  writings  and  con- 
versation made  it  a  force  of  public  education  and  national 
unity.  He  identified  its  path  and  law  with  the  concrete  rela- 
tions of  the  Family  and  the  State,  and  placed  these  relations 
on  the  basis  of  personal  character.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
this  educational  force  of  ethics  had  reached  any  thing  like 


INFLUENCE  OF  CONFUCIUS.  627 

so  definite  a  shape,  or  so  positive  a  working  power,  before 
his  time.  Of  this  function  he  seems  to  have  been  fully 
conscious :  the  result  proved  how  well  he  understood  the 
instincts  and  wants  of  his  people.  But  this  was  not  all  :  he 
gave  his  whole  energy  to  a  reconstructive  plan  which 
found  no  foothold  in  his  age.  This  was  the  erection  of 
imperialism  on  the  ground  of  a  continuous  national 
consciousness,  uniting  the  maturity  of  the  race  with  its 
childhood.  This  great  conception  was  destined  to  prove 
controlling  in  after  ages ;  but,  as  a  plan  of  reconstruction, 
it  was  a  failure.  Confucius  was  not  accidentally  famous. 
He  read  the  heart  of  his  people,  and  struck  the  key  of  its 
future  deliverance ;  but  the  method  to  which  he  gave  his 
life  was  a  vain  attempt  to  set  back  a  tidal  wave  of  the 
hour. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  started  a  motive  force  of  whose 
capacities  he  had  no  conception.  He  probably  did  Forms  the 
not  contemplate  its  formation.  This  force  was  the  literary 
class  of  teachers  and  statesmen,  afterwards  ex-  int0a 
panded  into  that  great  body  known  as  the  literati.  power- 
It  does  not  appear  that  such  a  class  existed  before  Confu- 
cius ;  though  individual  germs  of  it  were  undoubtedly 
present,  since  his  example  would  not  otherwise  have  had 
the  effect  that  was  manifest  in  the  course  of  two  or  three 
centuries.  There  were  representatives  of  personal  power 
in  all  periods  of  Chinese  history,  who  exercised  many  of 
the  functions  afterwards  concentrated  in  the  literary  class  ; 
there  were  brave  official  censors  before  Confucius  ;  trusted 
ministers  had  drawn  up  institutes  of  government  ;  the  na- 
tion itself  had  an  instinctive  respect  for  culture,  which  he 
did  but  develop.  But  no  authentic  sources  of  information 
for  this  period  exist,  except  the  Classic  Books  ;  and  we 
nowhere  read  in  these  of  wholly  independent  persons,  like 
Confucius,  going  from  court  to  court  purely  in  the  interest 
of  ideas,  as  teachers  of  great  ethical  laws  in  their  appli- 


628  SAGES. 

cation,  and  directors  of  the  minds  of  princes  and  pupils. 
The  sage,  or  "  superior  man,"  as  Confucius  exemplified  him, 
was  in  many  respects  unique.  He  combined  elements  of 
the  Hebrew  seer,  the  Greek  philosopher,  whether  scholar 
or  itinerant  legislator,  and  the  modern  professor  of  politi- 
cal science.  He  was  a  purely  individual  force,  to  which 
even  official  distinction  must  bow,  though  his  subse- 
quent absorption  of  office  itself  could  not  have  r^een  fore- 
seen. Nothing  was  more  conspicuous  in  Confucius  than 
his  respect  for  his  position  as  teacher  ;  as  a  sanctity  not 
to  be  slighted  nor  infringed,  even  by  a  prince.  He  taught 
his  followers  the  great  lessons  of  antiquity  expressly  that 
they  might  bring  them  to  bear  on  reckless  rulers,  and  pre- 
serve the  State  from  the  spirit  of  conquest  and  from  arbi- 
The  bai-  trary  will-  He  was,  in  fact,  instituting  the  perma- 
ance  to  im-  nent  balance  to  his  own  principle  of  imperialism,  in 
a  principle  of  moral  and  intellectual  supremacy. 
Without  positively  organizing  such  a  political  element  as  a 
distinct  class  of  persons,  still  less  predicting  its  great  des- 
tiny, he  yet  laid  its  foundations  by  furnishing  in  his  life  its 
personal  ideal,  and  in  his  writings  its  body  of  instruction. 
As  leading  the  way  in  bringing  the  force  of  educated  schol- 
arship, devoted  to  a  pure  ideal,  to  bear  upon  the  whole  com- 
munity from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of  its  scale,  he  may  be 
said  to  have  founded  the  literary  class  which  governs 
China  ;  and  thus  initiated  the  system  which  forces  the 
sovereign  to  select  officials  from  the  body  of  the  people 
on  grounds  of  merit. 

This  healthful  balance  to  military  and  arbitrary  govern- 
ment  issued  at  last  in  the  rule,  of  Confucian  culture 


the  two  over  every  other  element  of  political  life.  At  first 
Confucian  it  met  a  natural  resistance  from  the  purely  political 
triumph.  p0wer  This  antagonism  was  more  fully  brought 
out  by  Mencius,  two  centuries  afterwards  ;  and  its  rapid 
growth  is  shown  in  the  energetic  hostility  of  Chi-hwang-ti, 


INFLUENCE    OF    CONFUCIUS.  629 

and  in  the  courage  of  its  resistance  to  his  passion  for  mili- 
tary conquest,  and  to  the  disruption  of  the  nation  from  its 
past.  The  strife  of  the  two  principles  came  to  its  focus 
in  this  reign  ;  and  the  almost  immediate  revival  of  let- 
ters, foreshadowed  in  the  devotion  of  the  Confucians  to 
their  master's  convictions  in  the  day  of  trial,  proved  how 
strong  a  bond  of  unity  had  already  been  created  among  his 
followers.  In  the  age  of  the  Han,  he  was  entitled  Kung 
(Duke)  ;  in  the  seventh  century  (T'ang)  he  is  the  "  Su- 
preme Saint,"  and  his  descendants  are  ennobled  ;  in  the 
Ming  his  "  worship  "  is  a  national  cult.  But  beyond  this, 
the  class  he  did  so  much  to  form  has  organized  the  State  ; 
their  Han-lin  is  the  dispenser  of  powers  ;  their  educational 
system  has  unified  the  Empire.  The  sovereign  follows  the 
rule  of  the  sage.  To  the  literary  class  we  owe  the  Service  of 
special  gifts  and  glories  of  Chinese  civilization,  the  liter- 
The  great  historical  cyclopaedias,  annals  domestic 
and  foreign,  educational  institutions,  development  of  the 
language,  —  all  are  its  work.  Its  open  gates  forbid  the 
growth  of  caste,  and  the  blood  of  all  classes  and  condi- 
tions is  carried  through  all  the  arteries  of  the  State.  It  is 
the  democratic  element ;  rebellions  are  generally  headed 
by  scholars,  and  the  secret  societies  are  managed  by 
them.  The  same  class  conserve  the  peaceful  and  indus- 
trial habits  of  the  nation,  and  the  refining  influences  of 
culture. 

Its  two  most  effectively  conservative  traits  are  directly 
traceable  to  the  influence  of  Confucius.     The  first  Ethicaland 
is  the  identification  of  ethics  with  right  fulfilment  political 
of  special  functions,  duly  respecting  the  great  nat-  m 
ural  relations  as  conceived  and  expanded  by  the  Chinese 
mind.     It  has  made  a  religion  of  the  Confucian  creed,  that 
"  this  is  government,  —  where  prince  is  prince  ;  and  minis- 
ter, minister ;  and  father,  father  ;  and  son,  son."  1     This 

1  Lunyu,  XII.  n. 


630  SAGES. 

reverence  for  fundamental  distinctions  and  natural  respon- 
sibilities has  protected  China,  through  all  its  civil  turbu- 
lence, from  the  excesses  of  the  doctrine  of  equality  and  an 
all-levelling  socialism. 

The  other  trait  is  the  consciousness,  shaped  by  the  unity 
Doctrine  of  °^  tne  literary  bond,  of  an  unbroken  continuity  of 
National  national  existence  and  political  faith.  Of  this  in- 

Continuity.         1111  »        §  c  i          /-•        r       •  •• 

calculable  cohesive  torce  the  Coniucian  writings 
are  the  daily  food,  and  the  literary  class  the  constant  func- 
tionaries. It  has  penetrated  the  unpoetic  life  of  China  with 
an  ennobling  sentiment,  and  softened  its  hard  routines  with 
the  inestimable  feeling  that  the  whole  past  should  be  dear 
and  sacred  for  its  germs  of  present  blessings.  It  has  brought 
out  a  noble  consequence  imbedded  in  "  filial  piety,"  by  mak- 
ing political  honors  flow,  not  as  in  the  West  from  the  par- 
ents to  the  children,  but  from  the  children  on  the  parents  ; 
thus  impressing  on  the  living  generation  at  once  the  self- 
respect  of  one  who  must  earn  his  own  position  instead  of 
inheriting  another's,  and  the  generous  motive  of  repaying 
parental  care. 

The  stages  of  the  process  by  which  Confucian  teaching 
Form  of  resulted  in  the  politico-literary  class  will  hereafter 
Confudus's  form  a  most  interesting  chapter  for  Western  study, 
teaching.  At  present  too  ntiie  is  known  to  justify  any  at- 
tempt to  present  them  in  detail.  We  know  that  Confucius 
taught  by  conversation,  answering  the  questions  of  intelli- 
gent men,  in  or  out  of  office,  as  to  religion,  ethics,  and  in- 
stitutions, and  especially  as  to  the  actual  problems  of  their 
duty.  They  dwelt  in  their  homes,  and  could  hardly  be 
called  a  school.  Some  were  in  closer  intimacy  than  others, 
though  we  cannot  accept  the  estimate  that  the  one  class 
numbered  seventy,  and  the  other  three  thousand.1  The 
Sse-ki  undertakes  to  specify  the  faults  of  which  each  of  the 
most  conspicuous  was  cured  by  the  influence  of  the  Master, 

1  Mencius,  II.  PT.  L  3.    See  Plath,  Schiller  d.  Confuc.,  1873,  pp.  4,  5- 


INFLUENCE   OF    CONFUCIUS.  63! 

while  Confucius  himself  expresses  his  debt  to  many  of  them 
for  moral  and  spiritual  help.1  So  far  as  is  known,  there 
was  no  attempt  at  organization  for  any  purposes  whatever 
among  these  disciples.  There  was  nothing  analogous  to 
the  Hebrew  schools  of  the  Prophets,  nor  to  Pythagorean 
leagues  in  Southern  Italy,  nor  to  Buddhist  fraternities  in 
India.  After  his  name  had  become  famous,  we  find  it  re- 
ported that  his  followers  split  into  eight  parties.2  The 
greatest  work  of  this  preacher  of  concrete  organization  was 
that  which  he  did  not  dream  of  organizing  at  all  ;  a  Itaffords 
fact  which  accords  with  the  universal  laws  .of  in-  no  ground 

r\  J          forexclu- 

nuence.     There  has  never,  in  fact,  existed  any  ade-  sive  cen- 
quate  centre  for  such  construction  in   the  life  and  trahsm- 
teachings   of   Confucius :    these  appealed   to   the    natural 
reason  and  political  traditions  of  the  nation.     No  such  ex- 
clusive centralism  could  be  set  up  in  his  name  as  has  formed 
great  religious  communions  around  the  names  of  persons 
who  claimed  supernatural  commissions  to  save  or  to  destroy. 
Confucius  "the  Master"  is  simply  the  "Teacher,"   «The 
not  the  "  Lord  to  whom  every  knee  shall  bow."  .Master" 

J  is  simply 

He  is  only  the  chief  of  sages,  wisest  counsellor,  the 
spokesman  of  his  people's  sense  and  spirit.  In 
presence  of  his  tablet  in  the  temple  attached  to  the  exami- 
nation-hall, the  graduates  receive  their  diplomas  as  in  sight 
of  the  "  Master  of  Letters,"  but  not  of  the  king  of  the  con- 
science. The  veneration  for  him  is  a  tribute  to  personal 
character  and  service  ;  it  is  in  keeping  with  the  national 
bearing  towards  all  "  superior  men,"  with  habits  of  defer- 
ence towards  the  authority  of  wisdom  and  virtue.  There 
was  thus  no  foothold  for  any  thing  like  a  Confucian  church 
or  apostolate,  which  should  grow  into  an  all-mastering 
aristocracy  as  a  priesthood  of  letters.  Nor  has  the  literary 
class  ever  entertained  an  idea  of  separation  from  the 

1  See  for  their  different  traits  and  habits,  Lunyu  XI.  12  ;  V.  24  ;  XI.  8,  10 ;  V.  25. 
1  Han-fi,  A.  D.  229. 


632  SAGES. 

body  of  the  people  with  purposes  of  this  kind.  It  is  not  a 
close  corporation ;  it  is  not  a  masonic  fraternity.  It  is 
simply  the  incessant  flow  of  the  elect  of  the  national  schools 
to  functions  of  honor  and  command.  Its  "  graduate  "  bears 
little  resemblance  to  the  early  Confucian  teacher  of  politics, 
itinerating  the  States  in  search  of  employment  in  the  arts 
of  governing,  and  taking  princes  under  tuition.  That  in- 
Evoiutiou  dividualism  is  wholly  lost.  It  is  tranformed  into  a 
ofConfu-  vast  SyStem  of  fixed  official  relations,  by  which  the 

cian  ideas  . 

ininstitu-  central  authority  of  government  is  represented,  and 
its  administration  effected  throughout  the  Empire. 
It  is  the  outgrowth  of  a  national  system  of  education  woven 
into  the  common  life  of  the  masses,  the  executive  force  of 
principles  which  the  nation  regards  as  the  fixed  and  final 
order  of  human  society.  These  principles  are  more  than 
personal  opinions,  more  than  a  provisional  policy  of  this  or 
of  any  time.  They  run  back  of  Confucius.  They  do  not 
rest  on  his  authority ;  they  do  not  imply  the  perfection  of 
his  writings,  nor  the  infallibility  of  the  Classics.  They  are 
the  substance  of  Chinese  consciousness,  the  race-mould  or 
type,  physiological  as  well  as  mental.  No  people  were  ever 
so  successful  in  expressing  its  inner  life  in  its  positive  in- 
stitutions as  the  Chinese.  There  is  no  contradiction  to 
solve,  no  struggle  of  the  ideal  against  the  actual  here  ;  be- 
cause that  would  not  be  recognized  as  a  true  principle  of 
government,  which  was  not  believed  to  be  embodied  in  the 
substance  of  the  State.  Bad  government  is  here  simply 
the  attempt  of  individual  rulers  to  violate  this  universal 
consciousness  of  the  people,  and  is  rightly  resisted  and 
overturned  on  that  ground  alone.  Do  we  wonder  at  the 
persistence  of  a  form  of  civilization  which  is  so  truthful  an 
expression  of  the  inmost  life  of  a  race  ?  Or  is  it  surprising 
in  view  of  the  respect  of  Confucianism  for  human  nature, 
for  reason  and  law,  for  order,  justice,  humanity,  for  per- 
sonal culture,  and  the  rights  of  virtue  and  fitness  in  civil 


INFLUENCE    OF    CONFUCIUS.  633 

service,  that  it  should  find  equal  favor  from  the  patience  of 
China  and  the  ardor  of  Japan  ;  absorbing  the  cruder  cultus 
of  deified  men  in  that  realm  of  the  "  Rising  Sun,"  and  keep- 
ing pace  in  its  extension  with  the  swift  advance  of  popular 
intelligence  ? 


V. 

M  E  N  C  I  U  S. 


M  E  N  C  I  U  S. 


THE  text  of  Mencius  l  is  ascribed  by  the  oldest  authori- 
ties to  his  own  hand  ;    by  later  ones  to  his  Internal 
earliest  disciples.     The  want  of  connection  in  its  character 
parts  is  suggestive  of  compilation  ;  but  the  extreme 
minuteness  of  detail  in  names  and  circumstances, 


far  beyond  that  of  the  New  Testament,  points  at 
least  to  very  recent  recollections,  if  not  to  the  teacher's  own 
lips.  The  sentences  are  not  strung  together,  like  those  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  as  if  gathered,  from  various 
sources  into  an  anthology.  As  we  study  the  book,  the  im- 
pression deepens  that  we  have  before  us  the  product  of  a 

1  Our  resources  for  the  study  of  Mencius  are  now  ample.  We  have  two  translations  of  his 
writings,  both  of  them  results  of  great  research,  —  the  Latin  version  of  Julien  (Paris,  1824),  and 
the  English  of  Legge.  It  is  surprising  to  note  the  general  agreement  of  these  versions  ;  the 
one  a  miracle  of  linguistic  genius,  composed  after  only  six  months'  study  of  the  Chinese  lan- 
guage ;  and  the  other,  one  of  the  noble  fruits  of  twenty  years'  laborious  research.  Besides 
these,  we  have  a  French  version  by  Pauthier  (1852),  substantially  accordant  with  the  others. 
The  differences  in  the  three  afford  opportunity,  by  comparison,  for  arriving  at  probable  solu- 
tions of  doubtful  passages.  We  have  also  the  aid  of  parallelisms  from  the  eight  editions  con- 
sulted by  Julien,  and  the  wealth  of  commentary  collected  by  Legge.  To  these  advantages 
must  be  added  that  of  observing  how  strongly  the  rendering  of  Chinese  signs  can  be  influenced 
by  the  literary  style  of  the  translator,  and  his  preconception  of  Chinese  mind.  References  to 
the  works  of  Mencius  appear,  with  quotations,  in  works  which  existed  previous  to  the  Han, 
and  within  a  century  after  his  death,  and  which  came  into  the  hands  of  official  literary  Boards 
at  the  revival  of  letters.  (Legge,  Sect.  II.)  In  the  earliest  centuries  of  our  era,  the  host  of 
commentators  commenced  with  an  illustrious  statesman,  whose  work  is  still  extant  ;  and  in 
the  Sung  they  are  reinforced  by  Chu-hi,  to  whose  labors  we  owe,  by  his  own  account,  the  ac- 
curacy of  the  present  copies,  as  well  as  their  special  divisions.  More  recent  dynasties  have 
added  immensely  to  the  research  expended  on  one  who  is  now,  since  the  Sung,  recognized  as 
a  sage  at  the  side  of  Confucius,  and  as  rightly  developing  his  doctrine.  Julien's  Proem  gives 
a  list  of  over  sixty  commentators  consulted  by  him.  Six  hundred  editions  of  the  text  are 
accessible  ;  and  innumerable  scholars  have  expounded  it. 


638  SAGES. 

single  mind.  The  conversational  logic  by  which  political 
and  moral  truths  are  forced  upon  princes  and  disciples  is 
very  original,  and  pervades  the  whole  with  one  spirit.  Every- 
where it  is  the  same  man  who  speaks  and  deals  with  other 
men  ;  and  a  man  of  remarkable  genius,  as  lofty  as  it  is  keen 
and  bold.  His  apothegms  are  full  of  sense  and  strength  ; 
clear-cut,  decisive,  rapid,  wise,  and  noble.  Their  surprising 
aptness  in  detecting  the  fallacy  in  hand,  and  in  bringing 
out  the  conclusion  desired ;  their  command  of  historical 
illustration,  and  their  compacted  logic,  —  imply  elaboration. 
And  we  cannot  but  think  that,  if  they  are  the  records  of 
spontaneous  talk  which  they  purport  to  be,  they  have  been 
worked  over  with  a  view  to  complete  effect.  On  the  whole, 
it  seems  fair  to  suppose  that  they  were  drawn  up  by  Men- 
cius  himself  at  the  close  of  his  public  career.1  None  but 
himself  could  have  been  so  circumstantial.  Any  one  but 
himself  would  have  been  likely  to  praise  him,  or  at  least  to 
depict  his  personal  habits,  as  the  compilers  of  the  Lun-yu 
have  given  those  of  Confucius.  To  Chinese  disciples,  the 
temptation  to  such  tributes  would  have  been  irresistible. 

From  the  death  of  Confucius  to  the  birth  of  Mencius 

Thet'me  ^l  B-  C'^  was  ^  ^tt:^e  over  a  century.  During  that 
and  the  interval  we  hear  of  many  Confucian  sayings  ;  and 
efforts  to  commend  his  doctrine  to  the  leading 
princes  and  States  are  duly  recorded.2  Mencius  was  per- 
haps a  disciple  of  the  grandson  of  the  Master,  Tseu-sse, 
who  compiled  the  Chung-yung.  His  life  synchronizes  with 
the  great  age  of  Greek  philosophy,  and  with  the  movement 
of  Greek  mind  to  the  East  through  Alexander  of  Macedon. 
He  inherited  the  name  and  blood  of  one  of  the  great  families 
of  Loo,3  honorably  mentioned  by  Confucius  himself,  who 

1  Legge  says,  "  Nothing  prevents  us  from  accepting  the  sayings  and  doings  contained  in 
these  books  as  those  of  Mencius,  guaranteed  by  himself."     (p.  12.) 

2  See  Plath's  Sckiiler  d.  Confucius;  Sse-ki,  Kia-yu,  and  other  histories. 
8  Lunyu,  VI.  13  ;  XIX.  18 ;   Ta-kio,  Comm.  X.  22. 


MENCIUS.  639 

has  numbered  some  of  its  members  among  his  disciples.1 
He  inherited  the  Confucian  writings,  the  influence  of  their 
growing  school,  and  the  lessons  of  a  time  which  was  prov- 
ing by  its  miseries  the  wisdom  of  their  warnings  and  the 
truth  of  their  philosophy.  He  was  well  born  and  well 
taught.  His  father's  death  consigned  him  to  the  exclusive 
care  of  a  mother,  by  whom  he  was  shaped  to  habits  childhood 
of  industry  and  self-culture,  and  to  the  faith  and  "f^T 
courage  of  a  reformer.  The  traditions  report  that  ing- 
she  cut  in  pieces  a  beautiful  web  she  was  weaving,  to  im- 
press on  him  the  irreparableness  of  wasted  hours  ;  that  she 
changed  her  dwelling  again  and  again  to  protect  him  from 
examples  that  might  blunt  his  conscience,  or  lead  him  to 
formalism  ;  that  she  turned  his  maturer  mind  to  delicacy 
in  the  treatment  of  his  wife  ;  and  bravely  met  his  unwilling- 
ness to  answer  a  call  of  public  duty  which  would  deprive  her 
of  his  care,  with  the  injunction  :  "  You  are  a  ripe  man  and  I 
am  old  :  do  as  you  ought,  and  I  will  do  what  becomes  me." 
When  disciples  criticised  the  cost  of  his  arrangements  for 
her  burial,  and  especially  the  thickness  of  the  coffin,  he  re- 
plied :  "  Is  not  this  alone  a  satisfaction  to  one's  heart,  to 
keep  the  earth  as  far  as  possible  from  the  bodies  of  his 
dead  ?  I  have  heard  that  not  for  all  the  world  would  a 
good  man  be  mean  towards  a  parent."  2 

The  petty  States  were  absorbed  in  a  final  struggle  be- 
tween T'sin  and   T'soo,  whose  ambitious   leaders   Relations 
left  the  Empire  only  transient  intervals  of  peace.3   *e"hu^"I 
Never  was  a  time  farther  from  the  promise  of  a  isfactory. 
true  king ;  never  a  time  of  such  suffering  from  oppressive 
rulers.4     Yet  Mencius  bates  no  jot  of  hope  in  these  evil 
days.     The  people  were  waiting  to  welcome  good  govern- 

»  Lunyu,  V.  7  ;  VIII.  4.  2  Mencius,  II.  PT.  11.  7. 

3  Ibid.,  VI.  PT.  n.  iv. 

4  His  pictures  of  these  miseries  are  as  terrible  as  any  thing  in  the  chronicles  of  France  or 
Italy  in  the  Middle  Ages.     I.  PT.  n.  iv.  ;   II.  PT.  n.  iv.  ;  III.  PT.  n.  ix.  9. 


640  SAGES. 

ment  "  With  half  the  efforts  of  the  ancients,  the  result 
would  be  two-fold  ;  such  the  opportunities  of  the  time."  l 
His  faith  in  persuading  princes  to  seize  these  oppor- 
tunities was  not  less  than  that  of  Confucius ;  but  his 
experience  was  no  better.  Duke  Wan  of  T'ang  listened 
patiently  to  his  plans  for  social  improvement  and  popular 
education,  showed  the  utmost  tolerance  even  to  ultra- 
communists,  and  earned  the  name  of  one  who  strove  to 
bring  back  the  rule  of  humanity.2  Yet,  for  some  unex- 
plained reason,  the  sage  leaves  his  service  and  does  not 
return  to  it.  With  this  one  exception,  the  princes  wholly 
failed  to  please  him.  Even  in  Seu-en  of  T'se,  who  heard 
quietly  from  his  lips  severe  rebukes  and  regicidal  doc- 
trines, he  "did  not  find  the  ruler  he  wished,"  and  gave  up 
the  relation  of  his.  own  accord.3  Seang  of  Liang  "  afar 
off  did  not  look  to  him  like  a  ruler ;  and,  closely  studied, 
had  nothing  venerable  about  him."  4  He  "  found  no  one  dis- 
posed to  treat  these  kings  as  fit  to  be  spoken  with  about 
right  dealing  ;  than  which  no  disrespect  to  them  could  be 
greater."  Mencius,  for  his  part,  does  not  "  dare  to  set 
forth  to  them  any  thing  but  the  ways  of  Yao  and  Shun."  5 
Ever  ready  to  recognize  unappreciated  virtue,  and  to  aid 
every  practical  effort,6  a  great  conscience  nevertheless 
His  faith-  incessantly  moves  him  to  remonstrate,  to  warn,  to 
fui  testi-  hold  Up  the  sufferings  of  the  people  in  contrast  with 
against  the  duties  and  powers  of  a  true  king.  His  free- 
wrong'  dom  of  speech  is  unexampled.  The  right  and  duty 
of  the  people  to  treat  an  oppressor  as  a  usurper  and  ruffian 
is  again  and  again  brought  home  to  the  rulers  who  consult 
him.  He  is  not  content  with  ethical  precepts ;  he  has  his  ' 
positive  plans  of  labor,  taxation,  mutual  help  through  a 
division  of  lands  for  private  and  public  tillage,  and  other 
local  regulations.  He  is  familiar  with  all  past  institutions 

1  Mencius,  II.  PT.  i.  i.     2  "  Humanum  regimen  "  (Julien).   I.  PT.  n.  xiii. ;  III.  PT.  i.  i.-iv. 

3  Ibid.,  II.  PT.  n.  xii.  «  Ibid.,  I  PT.  i.  vi. 

6  Ibid.,  II.  PT.  n.  ii.  6  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  n.  xxx. ;  III.  PT.  i.  iii. 


MENCIUS.  641 

and  changes  in  these  matters,  and  uses  their  lessons  in  a 
statesmanly  and  philosophic  spirit.    Mencius  is  the   Strength 
type  of  Chinese  political  science  in  the  concrete,  of  his 
What  gives  unity  and  noble  purpose  to  the  national   F 
life  stands  in  his  teachings  more  clearly  and  fully  than  in 
those  of  his  master.     For  decision  and  point  his  counsels 
are  beyond  all  praise.     His  singleness  of  purpose  lifts  him 
above  others    into   absolute   freedom  from  crooked   poli- 
cies or  selfish  aims.     "  I  wish  to  rectify  men's  hearts,  to 
end  perverse  and  unbridled  talk :  not  from  love  of  disput- 
ing, but  because  I  can  do  no  otherwise."  l     How  clean  and 
fine  his  idea  of  duty :  — 

"  To  dwell  in  the  wide  house  of  the  world  ;  to  stand  in  true  attitude 
therein  ;  to  walk  in  the  wide  path  of  men  ;  in  success,  to  share  one's 
principles  with  the  people  ;  in  failure,  to  live  them  out  alone  ;  to  be 
incorruptible  by  riches  or  honors,  unchangeable  by  poverty,  unmoved 
by  perils  or  power,  —  these  I  call  the  qualities  of  a  great  man."  2  "  The 
difference  between  Shuh  and  Chih  was  nothing  but  the  interval  be- 
tween the  thought  of  gain  and  the  thought  of  goodness."  8 

He  wastes  no  time  in  planning  how  to  win  hearing  or 
propitiate  majesty.  How  grandly  direct  his  first  confer- 
ence with  the  king  of  Liang,  with  which  the  book  opens  : 

"Venerable  man,"  said  the  king,  "since  you  have  come  here  a 
distance  of  a  thousand  //,  you  have  doubtless  something  to  say  for  the 
profit  of  my  kingdom."  Mencius  replied:  "O  King,  why  talk  of 
profit  ?  I  have  humanity  and  justice  for  my  teaching,  nothing  more. 
If  these  be  put  last,  and  profit  first,  your  officers  will  not  be  content 
till  they  have  stripped  you  of  all."  * 

So  to  King  Wan,  anxious  for  the  future  of  his  little 
State :  — 

"  The  best  foundation  for  a  royal  line  is  to  do  what  is  fit  to  be 
handed  down.  The  end  is  with  Heaven.  For  you,  O  King,  'tis  enough 
to  strive  to  do  your  best."  5 

1  Mencius,  III.  PT.  n.  ix.  *  Ibid.,  III.  PT.  n.  ii.        »  VII.  PT.  i.  xxv. 

*  Ibid.,  I.  PT.  i.  i.  »  Ibid.,  I.  PT.  n.  xir. 

41 


642  SAGES. 

His  self-respect  is  even  more  sensitive  than  that  of  Con- 
fucius.  He  refuses  a  salary,  lest  it  should  tempt 
t.  him  to  keep  a  situation  which  he  saw  to  be  unfit 
for  him.1  He  will  not  receive  gifts  from  a  prince  which 
are  not  needed  for  public  service,  because  this  is  a  bribe.2 
He  replies  to  those  who  advised  him  to  be  more  complai- 
sant to  princes,  with  the  reproof :  "  Never  did  one  who 
bent  himself  make  another  straight."  3  The  slightest  vio- 
lation of  etiquette  justified  an  officer  in  refusing  to  obey 
the  summons  of  the  ruler  :  for  the  law  of  right  order  was 
above  the  caprices  of  rank.  "  Justice  is  the  way,  and  right 
order  the  door."  4  "  As  to  rank,  how  should  I  be  on  terms 
of  friendship  with  you,  the  prince  ?  As  to  virtue,  how 
should  you  be'on  such  terms  with  me  ?"5  His  refusal  to 
hold  intercourse  with  a  fellow-commissioner6  has  an  air  of 
arrogance,  but  was  probably  not  without  reasons  known  to 
himself. 

A  rebuke  administered  to  King  Seu-en  for  an  offence  to 
this  personal  dignity  is  worth  notice:  The  king  excused 
himself  from  visiting  Mencius  on  pretence  of  illness,  pro- 
posing that  the  latter  should  make  the  call  on  himself  the 
next  day  instead.  The  philosopher,  knowing  that  the  point 
at  stake  was  one  of  precedence,  answered  with  fine  irony : 
"  I  also  am  unwell,  and  cannot  go  to  court." 7  Next  day 
however  he  goes  out  as  usual,  and  when  called  to  account 
by  another,  puts  him  off  lightly ;  but  before  the  king's 
officer  he  fearlessly  sets  the  whole  truth  :  — 

"  You  misunderstand  me.  '  Kings  have  their  wealth,'  said  T'sang. 
'  I  have  my  humanity,  they  their  dignities,  I  my  justice.  Wherein 
am  I  inferior  ?  '  Was  not  this  right  ?  Three  things  are  everywhere 
in  honor,  —  rank,  years,  virtue.  Rank  is  first  in  courts;  age  in  vil- 
lages ;  virtue  in  helping  the  times  and  the  people.  How  should  he 

1  Mencius,  II.  FT.  n.  xiv.  2  Ibid.,  II.  PT.  H.  iii.  8  Ibid.,  III.  PT.  n.  i. 

4  Ibid.,  V.  PT.  H.  vii.  «     Ibid.  •  Ibid.,  II.  PT.  n.  vi. 

T  Ibid.,  II.  PT.  n.  ii.    "  Infeliciter  etiam  aegroto"  (Julien). 


MENCIUS.  643 

who  possesses  but  one  of  these  despise  one  who  possesses  the  other 
two  ?  If  a  prince  would  act  nobly,  he  must  not  summon  his  ministers 
as  subjects  ;  but,  if  he  wants  their  counsels,  he  goes  to  them."  l 

He  is  as  downright  with  his  disciples  as  with  the  princes. 
"  You  have  come  here,"  he  says  to  one,  "  for  the  sake  of 
eating  and  drinking.  Have  you  learned  the  ways  of  the 
ancients  to  so  little  purpose  ? "  He  tells  another  that 
"  wild  grass  is  filling  up  his  mind."  Answering  shallow 
criticism  of  his  conduct,  he  makes  the  critic  confess  him- 
self to  be  "  indeed  a  small  man."  2 

His  sensitiveness  springs  from  profound  conviction  of 
the  need  of  his  function.  Through  all  evil  times  Due  to  his 
he  traces  the  work  of  the  true  sage,  restoring  the  UJuno. 
face  of  the  earth  and  the  spirit  of  man.3  History,  tion. 
with  its  cycles  of  good  and  evil,  is  for  him  the  endless  les- 
son that  principles  are  eternal,  and  that  with  the  hour 
comes  the  man.  As  Yu  subdued  the  floods  ;  as  the  Great 
Duke  aided  Woo  to  overturn  the  tyrants  of  the  Shang ;  as 
Confucius  struck  terror  into  the  evil  men  of  his  day  by  his 
Tchun-tsieu,  —  so  there  was  work  set  for  him  also  in  a  day 
as  void  of  noble  aims  as  those  were,  as  infected  with  perni- 
cious sects  and  schools,  the  tyranny  of  kings  and  the  lust 
of  gain.4  "  When  a  sage  shall  next  arise,  he  will  certainly 
not  change  my  words." 

More  attractive  than  his  jealous  self-estimation    is  his 
devotion  to  the  good  of  the  people.     Every  conver-  Devotion 
sation  with  rulers  is  consecrated  to  their  interests  p^f^ 
and   rights ;    every   admonition   and  every  rebuke  humanity. 
pressed   instinctively  to   this   end,   with    an    energy  that 

1  Mencius,  II.  PT.  n.  ii.    It  is  difficult  to  see  how  Dr.  Legge  makes  out  a  piece  of  "  prevari- 
cation "  here  (p.  26).    He  also  finds  Mencius  guilty  of  meeting  Seu-en's  excuses  for  not  accept- 
ing his  principles,  in  an  unworthy  manner.     Seu-en  objected  that  he  loved  beauty,  substance, 
and  valor  too  much  for  such  strictness.     Mencius  bids  him  satisfy  these  tastes,  yet  only  in  such 
ways  as  would  give  the  people  also  opportunity  of  enjoying  them  becomingly  (I.  PT.  n.  iii.  v). 
What  there  is  in  this  to  deserve  censure,  I  fail  to  comprehend. 

2  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  i.  xxv. ;  VII.  PT.  11.  xxi. ;  II.  PT.  11.  xii. 

«  Ibid.,  III.  PT.  ii.  ix.  «  Ibid., II.  PT.  ii.  xiii. 


644  SAGES. 

pierced  every  barrier.  In  full  confidence  that  all  men  have 
sympathy  with  suffering,  and  that  when  moved  by  its  ap- 
peals one  could  as  easily  govern  a  State  as  "  turn  a  toy  in 
the  hand,"  Mencius  holds  steadily  up  before  his  royal  pu- 
pils the  whole  picture  of  the  public  miseries,  charges  them 
again  and  again  with  the  guilt  and  shame,  and  pushes  his 
plans  of  relief  as  if  they  had  but  to  speak  and  all  would  be 
accomplished.  No  less  than  six  such  pleas  for  humanity 
and  justice  are  recorded  in  detail ;  while  more  fragmentary 
assertions  of  the  precedence  of  the  people  to  rulers,  of  its 
affection  and  confidence  as  their  real  treasure,  of  its  pros- 
perity as  the  blessing  of  Heaven,  meet  us  on  every  page. 
On  this  theme  imagination,  logic,  statesmanly  thought, 
indignation  and  entreaty  are  all  concentrated. 

"  Have  you  watched  the  growing  grain  after  the  season  of  drought : 
how,  when  the  rain  falls,  it  stands  up  refreshed  ?  Who  can  keep  it 
back  ?  These  shepherds  of  men  all  love  to  destroy  men.  Were  there 
but  one  who  did  not,  the  people  would  hasten  to  obey  him  as  rushing 
waters  that  cannot  be  stayed."  l 

This  broad  demand  for  humanity  found  its  arguments  in 
the  barley  blades  ripening  in  millions  on  the  wide  acres ; 
in  the  common  endowments  of  men,  their  outward  senses, 
and  their  sense  of  beauty,  as  attributes  pointing  to  a  com- 
mon spiritual  capacity  for  truth  and  goodness.2 

Like  Confucius,  he  accepted  all  who  came  with  a  mind 
Affirmative  to  learn,  without  inquiry  into  their  past  ;  and  was 
spirit.  charged  with  paying  too  little  regard  to  moral  stand- 
ing.3 More  perhaps  than  Confucius  he  emphasized  the 
germs  of  good  in  men  ;  believing,  like  Plato,  that  no  man 
willingly  sins  ;  and  more  intent,  even  while  denouncing 
wrong,  on  laying  better  foundations  in  the  mind  and  heart 
of  his  people,  than  on  confuting  the  delusions  of  their 
teachers,  or  overthrowing  their  vicious  lords.  "  However 

1  Mencius,  I.  PT.  i.  vi.  ;  III.  PT.  n.  v.  *  Ibid,  VI.  PT.  i.  vii. 

»  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  n.  xxx. 


MENCIUS.  645 

bad  a  man  be  to  look  upon,  yet  if  he  purify  himself  with 
restraint  of  mind  and  outward  cleanliness,  he  may  sacrifice 
to  the  Supreme."1 

Of  all  teachers  perhaps  the  most  affirmative  ;  thoroughly 
alive  to  the  reserves  of  moral  power  in  peasant,  sage,  or 
king.  His  intensity  of  faith  and  motive-energy  makes  him 
carry  out  the  qualities  characteristic  of  his  master  in  a  more 
pronounced  way.  He  is  more*  jealous  of  his  personal  dig- 
nity than  Confucius,  more  protestant  in  his  humanity,  more 
positive  in  his  assertion  of  the  right  of  revolution,  more 
definite  in  his  plans  of  reform.  The  fact  may  point  to 
advance  in  the  conditions  which  called  for  such  dealing,  as 
well  as  to  the  growth  of  self-conscious  purpose  in  the  class 
of  reformers  which  Confucius  had  created. 

Mencius  had  a  genius  for  principles.     The  very  trans- 
parency of  his  moral  precepts,  —  these  solutions  of  A  enius 
problems  of  duty,  these  swift  cuts  through  knots  forprin- 
of  policy,  —  hides  the  wonderful  intuitive  force  from  Clples 
which    they    spring.     For  his   open  eye  the  age  and  its 
wants  were  daylight.     He  is  face  to  face  with  the  primal 
laws  of  'character  which  take   up  the  facts,  as  a  magnet 
gathers  the  dust  of   iron  on    a   plate,  into   those   orderly 
shapes  that    the   time   requires.      Things  are  brought  to 
right  proportions  and  real  values  in  eternal  scales,  and  the 
fulfilment  of  real  functions  becomes  the  sole  test  of  suc- 
cess.   Not  more  clearly  does  he  affirm  the  irreversible  laws 
which  it  is  fatal  to  oppose,  than  the  real  distinctions  and 
balancing  contrasts  that  make  up  human  nature  and  des- 
tiny.    He  keeps  the  "  middle  way,"  and  has  no  applause 
either  for  the  man  who  stands  stiffly  out  on  his  individu- 
ality, or  for  the  man  who  cares  not  with  whom  he  keeps 
company.2     "  Every  man  for  himself,"  and  an  in-  Against 
discriminate  "  love  "  that  knew  neither  prince  nor  extremists- 
parent,  he   regards  as  equally  forces  of  social  disintegra- 

1  Mencius,  IV.  PT.  n.  xxv.  2  Ibid.,  II.  PT.  i.  ix. ;  VII.  PT.  i.  xxvi. 


646  SAGES. 

tion.1  He  devoutly  rests  on  the  law  of  Heaven,  yet  in- 
sists that  men  shall  work  out  their  own  success ;  puts 
ceremonies  on  the  ground  of  natural  respect ;  subordinates 
form  to  spirit  while  honoring  both.2  He  perceives  the 
function  of  evil  to  drive  men  to  good,3  and  the  philosophy 
of  reaction  as  explaining  their  transitions  from  one  ex- 
treme of  opinion  to  another;  drawing  lessons  of  charity 
and  wise  treatment  from  these  natural  necessities.4  He 
perceives  the  industrial  law  that  the  head  should  rule  the 
hand,  and  manual  labor  be  directed  by  skilled  thought. 
He  is  at  once  the  worshipper  of  spontaneity  and  the  stern 
legislator  of  self-discipline.  His  fine  plea  for  the  real 
rights  of  the  passion-nature  may  be  contrasted  with  the 
asceticism  of  the  neo-Platonist  and  the  Buddhist,  and 
the  long  protest  of  Christianity  against  "the  world  and 
the  flesh."  What  he  most  admires  in  Confucius  is  his 
universality;  a  mind  adaptable  to  every  occasion  and  con- 
juncture." 5 

This  even  justice  to  all  human  forces  was  due  to  his  be- 
Doctnne  ^  m  ^e  essential  goodness  of  human  nature ;  a 
of  the  belief  so  thoroughly  characteristic  that  if  as  fairly 
of  Human  deserves  to  be  called  by  his  name  as  by  any  in  the 
Nature.  history  of  thought.  He  reads  man,  not  from  below, 
but  from  above  ;  not  from  his  crude  actual,  but  from  its 
enfolded  promise  ;  defines  human  nature,  not  by  its  out- 
ward phenomena,  but  by  its  essential  law  and  possibility, — 
as  a  true  artist  knows  his  portraiture  to  be  untrue  to  his 
subject  unless  he  constructs  the  permanent  image  out  of 
the  best  expressions  to  which  the  features  tend.  Hence 
every  element  of  the  human  is  legitimate  in  its  due  propor- 
tion and  bearing  on  the  rest,  and  guaranteed  by  laws  of 
cosmic  order,  of  which  such  righteousness  is  the  voice. 

1  Mencius,  III.  PT.  n.  ix. 

2  Ibid.,  II.  PT.  n.  vii.  ;  II.  PT.  i.  iv.  ;  V.  PT.  i.  ii. ;  VI.  PT.  n.  i. 

3  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  i.  ix.  *  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  n.  xxvi. 
0  Ibid.,  V.  PT.  n   i. 


MENCIUS.  647 

This  doctrine  was  no  crude  utopianism,  but  guidance  to 
the  heart  of  all  problems  by  a  path  to  be  trodden  Not  uto_ 
in  humility  and  self-discipline.    To  one  who  doubted  Pian> but 

•  •  •  i  T    •  •  based  on 

it  Mencms  pointed  out  the  conditions,  quoting  the  conditions 
Shi-king  :  "  The  medicine  will  not  cure  the  patient  of  culture> 
unless  it  gives  him  pain."  l  He  is  strenuous  to  refute  those 
who  define  human  nature  by  its  outside  details,  by  mere 
vital  phenomena,  by  pleasure,  by  moral  indifferentism,  or  as 
a  result  of  outward  conditions  alone  :  — 

"  1  he  virtues  are  not  poured  into  us,  they  are  natural ;  seek  and 
you  will  find  them,  neglect  and  you  will  lose  them.  To  every  faculty 
and  relation  belongs  its  normal  law ;  but  without  its  fit  culture  it 
will  decay.  How  lamentable  to  lose  this  mind,  and  not  know  how 
to  seek  it.  The  end  of  wisdom  is  to  seek  the  lost  mind:'1  f  "  Of  all 
seeds  the  virtue  is  in  their  ripeness."3  "  Only  he  who  has  studied 
his  mental  constitution  knows  his  nature  ;  knowing  his  nature,  he 
knows  Heaven."  4 

This  essential  soundness  is  not  a  rout  of  undisciplined 
instincts,  but  right  order  of  government  between  what  is 
made  to  rule  and  what  to  obey  :  — 

"  They  are  great  men  who  follow  that  part  of  them  which  is  great. 
Let  one  stand  in  his  nobler  part,  and  the  meaner  will  not  be  able  to 
take  it  from  him.  This  is  simply  what  makes  greatness."  5  "  The 
superior  man  desires  a  wide  sphere  that  he  may  give  peace  to  multi- 
tudes ;  but  what  his  nature  makes  his  own  cannot  be  greatened  by  the 
largeness  of  his  sphere,  nor  lessened  by  its  obscurity."  6 

Mencius  finds  a  natural  adaptation  in  man  for  dealing 
with  circumstances,  which  constitutes  his  freedom,   Human 
and    which  should  forbid  him  to    call   them  fate.7   Freedom. 
The  force  manifested  by  noble  impulses  when  spontane- 
ously following  their  objects  is  the  testimony  of  human 
nature  that  these  channels  of  power  represent  its  inmost 
purpose.     "  When  Shun  heard  a  good  word  or  saw  a  good 

1  Mencius,  III.  PT.  i.  i.  2  Ibid.,  VI.  PT.  i.  viiL,  xi. 

»  Ibid.,  VI.  PT.  i.  xix-xx;  also  II.  PT.  i.  vi.  *  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  i.  i. 

e  Ibid.,  VI.  PT.  i.  xv.  •  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  i.  xxi. 

7  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  ii.  xxiv. 


648  SAGES. 

deed,  he  was  like  the  Kiang  bursting  its  banks'  and  grandly 
flooding  all  things."  l  "  When  a  bad  father  is  brought  to 
feel  delight  in  what  is  good,  the  whole  land  is  trans- 
formed." 2  Hence  Mencius  is  so  anxious  not  to  suppress 
his  "passion  nature,"  but  only  to  hold  it  within  limits  as 
set  by  morality,  which  is  its  natural  ruler.3 

"  The  great  man  is  he  who  does  not  lose  his  child-heart4  He 
does  not  think  beforehand  that  his  words  shall  be  sincere,  nor  that 

his  acts  shall  be  resolute  ;  he  simply  abides  in  the  right.5 
heart.  ^ne  rignt  path  (tao)  is  near,  yet  men  seek  it  afar  off  ;  the 

labor  of  duty  is  easy,  yet  men  seek  it  in  what  is  difficult."  6 
The  way  is  wide  ;  it  is  not  hard  to  know.  Go  home  and  seek  it,  and 
you  shall  not  lack  teachers."  7 

No  one  more  clearly  distinguishes  radical  human  nature 
"  Human  from  impulses  that  prove  imperfect  growth  or  long 
ntt'cTude  m'suse  °f  natural  powers.  His  stern  warnings  of 
instincts,  the  penalties  of  such  abuse  have  been  already  no- 
ofdiId-kS  ticed.  But  sin  is  always  for  him  the  misuse  of 
piine.  powers  essentially  (that  is,  ideally)  good.  His  fine 
parable  of  the  trees  that  grew  luxuriantly  till  cattle  browsed 
on  them,  so  that  men  falsely  imagined  from  their  bare 
stripped  appearance  that  the  nature  of  the  soil  was  barren  ;8 
and  his  picture  of  the  water,  made,  by  forcing,  to  appear 
as  if  its  nature  was  to  flow  upwards,9  —  are  illustrations  of 
his  best  spirit. 

As  natural  track,  virtue  is  easy ;  but  'tis  discipline  that 
makes  the  man.  The  sorrows  of  Shun  were  his  culture 
for  the  throne.10 

"  When  Heaven  is  about  to  confer  a  great  function,  it  first  exercises 
the  mind  with  suffering  and  the  limbs  with  toil ;  exposes  the  body  to 
privations,  and  confounds  the  undertakings.  In  this  way  it  stimulates 

Mencius,  VII.  PT.  i.  xvi.  2  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  i.  xxviii. 

Ibid.,  II.  PT.  i.  ii.  *  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  ii.  xii. 
Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  ii.  xi.  ;  "  Non  prezfi nit  effectum  "  (Julien). 

Ibid-,  IV.  PT.  i.  xi.  7  Ibid.,  VI.  PT.  n.  ii.  8  Ibid.,  VI.  PT.  i.  viii. 

Ibid.,  ii.  10  Ibid.,  V.  PT.  i.  i.-vii. 


MENCIUS.  649 

power  and  supplies  defect.  Incessant  falls  teach  men  to  reform,  and 
distresses  rouse  their  strength.  Life  springs  from  calamity,  and  death 
from  ease.1  Men  of  special  virtue  and  wisdom  are  wont  to  owe  these 
powers  to  the  trials  they  have  endured." 2 

The  penalties  of  working  against  Nature  are  not  the 
anger  of  a  jealous  God  ;  they  are  effects  of  disobedience 
to  the  laws  of  the  soul  and  the  world  :  — 

"  They  who  expect  to  live  without  enemies,  yet  have  no  kindness 
for  others,  are  like  one  who  should  try  to  hold  a  heated  body   Natural 
without  dipping  it  in  water.     Men  expect  by  their  own  dark-   laws  of 
ness  to  enlighten  others.     The  artisan  may  give  a  man  com-   penalty. 
pass  and  square,  but  he  cannot  make  him  skilful  in  the  use  of  them. 
What  misery  they  shall  suffer  who  talk  of  the  evil  in  others  !     A  man 
must  first  despise  himself,  then  others  will  despise   him.     A   family 
must  first  overthrow  itself,  then  others  will  overthrow  it.     A  State  must 
first  smite  itself,  then  others  will  smite  it.     He  who  stops  short  where 
it  is  unbecoming  will  stop  short  in  every  thing.    How  can  one  conceal 
his  character  ?  " 3 


From  such  philosophy  and  faith  as  this  we  shall  hear  no 
weak  complaints  of  the  vanity  of  human  endeavor. 

J  Cheerful- 

The  utmost  in  that  direction  is  "dissatisfaction"  ness  and 
at  meeting  no  prince  who  can  be  taught  the  duties  courage- 
of  a  ruler.4  His  failures  did  not  weaken  his  self-respect. 
"  I  love  life,  but  there  is  that  I  love  more  than  life.  There- 
fore I  will  not  seek  to  hold  it  by  unworthy  ways."  6  That 
this  is  no  empty  boast,  the  constant,  plaindealing  of  this 
censor  of  rulers,  any  one  of  whom  could  have  cut  off  his 
head  by  a  word,  gives  ample  proof.  The  escape  of  a  critic 
so  unflinching  can  be  explained  only  by  the  very  fearless- 
ness and  self-respect  that  forced  upon  anger  the  sense  of 
its  own  impotence.  We  recall  the  almost  identical  words 

1  Mencius,  VI.  PT.  n.  xv.  2  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  i.  xviii. 

3  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  i.  vii.  ;  VII.  PT.  n.  xx.,  v. ;  IV.  PT.  n.  ix. ;  IV.  PT.  i.  viii.  ;  VII.  PT.  i. 
xliv.;  IV.  PT.  i.  xv. 

«   Ibid.,  II.  PT.,  II.  Xiii.  6   Ibid.,  VI.   PT.  I.  X. 


650  SAGES. 

of  Algernon  Sidney,  writing  from  exile  to  friends  who 
Grounds  urged  him  to  purchase  forgiveness  by  retraction.1 
of  his  jkg  personal  force  of  such  a  man  as  Mencius  was 

personal 

force.  a  phenomenon,  and  we  read  of  a  king's  sending  a 
person  to  spy  out  whether  he  was  like  other  men.2  That 
he  spoke  in  the  name  of  all  history,  of  the  good  and  great 
whom  all  men  knew,  and  whom  to  reject  was  a  greater 
treason  than  his  own  contempt  of  living  courts,  doubtless 
helped  to  shield  him  from  arbitrary  violence.  And  it  is  no 
light  resource  to  one  who  must  stand  for  unpopular  truth, 
that  he  can  feel  enthusiasm  for  those  who  have  stood  for  it 
in  the  past.  Mencius  does  not  stint  his  admiration  for  his 
master :  "  I  have  not  attained  to  the  sages  of  old,  but  I 
would  learn  to  resemble  Confucius.  In  all  ages  there  was 
never  another  Confucius."  3  What  he  most  honored  in  all 
Nature  these  great  men  he  is  not  slow  to  specify  :  "  Not 
°eal"0ap~  to  win  all  the  kirlgdoms  of  China  would  they  have 
antiquity,  committed  an  act  of  injustice,  or  put  to  death  an 
innocent  person." 4  Quite  as  impressive  is  his  humility 
before  his  ideal.  "  Master,"  asks  one,  "  have  you  arrived  at 
the  dignity  of  a  sage  ?  "  Mencius  answers :  "  Oh  what 
words  are  these !  Confucius  would  not  claim  to  be  a  sage, 
and  do  you  put  such  a  question  to  me  ? "  6  Yet  there  is  no 
slavishness  in  his  appeal  to  other  helpers  :  "  The  principles 
of  all  sages  are  the  same,  though  at  a  distance  of  a  thou- 
sand years  ;  it  is  like  uniting  the  halves  of  a  seal."  6  He  is 
never  weary  of  reminding  men  that  all  can  become  Yaos 
and  Shuns.  "The  multitude  wait  for  impulse;  the  few 
arouse  themselves."  7  He  reserves  the  full  right  to  doubt 
the  venerated  Classics.  "  It  would  be  better  to  be  with- 
out the  Shu-king  than  to  believe  every  word  in  it." 8 

1  "  I  hope  to  die  in  the  same  principles  in  which  I  have  lived,  and  I  will  live  no  longer 
than  they  will  preserve  me.  I  have  ever  had  it  in  mind  that  when  God  shall  place  me  in  such 
a  condition  that  I  cannot  save  my  life  but  by  doing  an  indecent  thing,  the  time  has  come 
wherein  I  should  resign  it.  I  live  by  just  means,  or  not  at  all."  2  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  n.  xxxii. 

3  Ibid.,  II.  PT.  i.  ii.  *  Ibid.,  II.  FT.  i.  ii.  5  Ibid.,  II.  PT.  i.  ii. 

6  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  n.  i.  7  jbid.,  VII.  PT.  i.  x.  8  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  n.  ii. 


MENCIUS.  651 

The  men  of  old  are  to  be  "  studied  in  order  to  discover  if 
in  all  respects  they  are  to  be  approved."  1 

We  note  with  surprise,  that  in  all  the  dealings  of  Mencius 
with  the  princes  of  his  day  there  is  not  one  word  The  con_ 
nor  action  in  which  he  does  not  maintain  the  spirit  sistency  of 
and  pursue  the  aims  which  have  now  been  de-  h 
scribed.  Even  where  the  story  seems  to  tread  the  edge 
of  a  dubious  policy,  the  next  step  rescues  it,  and  makes 
the  supposed  wrong  not  only  a  rebuke  to  our  doubts,  but 
a  condition  of  some  noble  piece  of  counsel.2  Thus  the 
philosopher  seems  to  defend  the  habit  charged  on  scholar- 
statesmen,  of  going  from  court  to  court  with  large  attend- 
ance at  the  expense  of  the  State,  as  well  as  that  of  taking 
public  support  without  performing  public  service.  But  as 
we  go  on,  we  find  that  he  is  dealing  with  a  shallow  labor- 
theorist,  who  has  no  idea  of  the  value  of  intelligence  as 
an  element  of  production,  nor  of  the  services  rendered  by 
thinkers  like  Mencius,  who  were  constantly  consulted  on 
public  affairs.  Mencius  takes  occasion  to  compel  recogni- 
tion of  moral  and  intellectual  values.  It  is  a  lecture  on  the 
moral  basis  of  credit  and  prosperity,  from  which  many  of 
our  own  labor  reformers  might  derive  as  much  benefit  as 
the  hypercritical  P'ang  Kang.3  His  denunciation  of  the 
"  good  careful  people  of  the  villages  "  as  "  thieves  of  virtue  " 
ceases  to  appear  unjust,  when  we  find  them  to  be  a  class 
of  persons  who  in  New  Testament  phrase  would  be  called 
the  "  Pharisees  "  of  the  time.4 

The  Confucian  confidence  in  moral  power  as  absolutely 
without  limit  recurs  in  Mencius  with  at  least  equal  Absoiute- 

n^,  i  i  -111  neSS  °f 

energy.      "  The  good   ruler  will   have  no  enemy.   moral 
If  obliged  to  fight,  he  is  sure  to  overcome."     "  If  power- 

1  Mencius,  V.  PT.  n.  viii.  l  See  especially  Ibid.,  II.  PT.  n.  viii. ;  I.  PT.  n.  x.,  xi. 

3  Ibid.,  III.  PT.  n.  iv.  See  Legge's  severe  criticism,  p.  53.  There  is  no  proof  that  Men- 
cius himself  was  chargeable  with  these  idle  displays  :  nor  that  he  had  any  means  for  gratifying 
such  tastes,  had  he  possessed  them  ;  which  is  improbable  enough.  As  for  taking  pay,  the 
laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire  ;'  and  nothing  like  concealment  of  convictions  for  the  sake  of  gain 
can  possibly  be  imagined  in  his  case.  *  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  n.  xxxvii. 


652  SA£ES. 

the  ruler  be  righteous,  all  will  be  righteous."  l  It  may  sur- 
Grounds  Pr^se  us  that  such  a  faith  should  not  have  been 
of  the  incredible  to  men  like  Confucius  and  Mencius, 
who  seem  to  have  ignored  the  fact  that  their  most 
devoted  service  of  principles  failed  to  convert,  so  far  as  the 
record  shows,  a  single  petty  monarch  to  the  right  path. 
It  is  true  they  might  deny  that  the  age  afforded  no  fair 
chance  for  testing  the  principle.  They  aver,  too,  that  in 
case  of  failure  one  must  blame  himself,  not  virtue.  "  If 
one  love  and  there  is  no  return,  let  him  examine  his  own 
heart ;  if  he  cannot  govern  men,  let  him  examine  his  own 
wisdom."2  But,  after  all,  is  it  so  strange  to  one  who  ob- 
serves the  prodigious  force  of  fashion  and  public  opinion, 
or  reflects  on  the  magnetism  of  an  idea  when  it  fully  pos- 
sesses a  living  man,  and  the  swift  changes  of  belief  that 
make  a  generation  pass  utterly  out  of  the  latitude  of  their 
immediate  predecessors,  that  these  earnest  Oriental  proph- 
ets of  righteousness  should  claim  for  principles  the  mystic 
secret  of  rule,  and  insist  on  their  efficacy  against  all  the 
rebuffs  of  the  hour?  Man  does  not  live  by  experience 
alone,  but  by  transcending  experience,  assured  of  what  he 
does  not  see,  and  never  has  seen,  as  real ;  nor  can  he  ever 
recognize  the  absolute  worth  and  authority  involved  in  the 
idea  of  duty,  but  by  a  mental  lift  into  a  sphere  above  all 
the  limits  and  contingencies  of  actual  human  conduct. 

We  must  add  that  the  dependence  of  the  people  on  the 
character  of  the  ruler  is  the  most  obvious  fact  of  experi- 
ence itself  to  a  Chinese  mind,  which  can  find  no  equivalent 
for  the  immensity  of  imperial  influence  under  patriarchal 
institutions  but  the  majesty  of  Heaven.  As  actual  gov- 
ernment in  these  political  ethics  means  responsibility  to 
the  highest  justice  and  good-will,  the  converse  of  the  prin- 
ciple must  concede  the  inherent  powers  of  these  virtues  in 

1  Mencius,  I.  PT.  i.  v.,  vi.,  vii. ;  II    PT.  i.  v. ;  II.  PT.  n.  i. ;  IV.  PT.  i.  xiii.  ;  IV.  PT.  n.  v. 

2  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  i.  iv.  ;  IV.  PT.  n.  xxviii. 


MENCIUS.  653 

transforming  the  individual  to  the  vast  sphere  of  the  State. 
The  very  terms  of  the  statement,  that  the  highest  aim  of 
government  is  the  rule  of  the  best,  imply  that  the  best  pos- 
sesses an  inherent  capacity  to  rule. 

It  is  the  glory  of  Mencius  to  have  fully  comprehended 
that,  in  politics  as  in  personal  culture,  nothing  will  serve 
or  save  but  the  triumph  of  principles  ;  that  all  expedients 
which  reject  their  slow  and  normal  operation,  all  sudden 
conversions,  all  reconstructions  at  will  or  by  master-strokes, 
are  delusive. 

"  Kwan  said,  *  Now  the  whole  kingdom  is  drowning  ;  how  is  it  that 
you  do  not  save  it  ? '  Mencius  replied  :  '  A  drowning  kingdom  must 
be  rescued  by  right  principles  ;  not  like  a  drowning  person,  by  the 
hand.' " ' 


I.    The  Mencian  ideal  of  personal  character  may  be  given 
in  a  few  sentences  :  — 

"A  real  man  is  one  whose  goodness  is  a  part  of  himself.  Of  the 
qualities  of  the  sage,  none  is  greater  than  that  of  being  a  ideal  of 
helper  of  men  to  right  living.  He  is  ashamed  ofareputa-  personal 
tion  beyond  his  desert.  Having  found  the  right  way  within  c 
himself,  he  rests  in  it,  firm  and  serene,  holding  intimate  converse  with 
it,  and  reaching  to  its  fountain  head.  He  obeys  the  right  and  waits 
for  the  appointed.  His  words  are  plain  and  simple,  yet  of  widest  bear- 
ing. His  aim  is  self-culture,  yet  it  gives  peace  to  all  men.  All  things 
are  already  complete  in  us.  There  is  no  greater  delight  than  to  be 
conscious  of  right  within  us.  If  one  strive  to  treat  others  as  he  would 
be  treated  by  them,  he  shall  not  fail  to  come  near  the  perfect  life. 
Every  duty  is  a  charge,  but  the  charge  of  oneself  is  the  root  of  all 
others.  The  disease  of  men  is  to  neglect  their  own  fields  and  go 
to  weeding  those  of  others  ;  to  exact  much  from  others,  and  lay  light 
burdens  on  themselves.  Over-readiness  of  speech  comes  of  not  hav- 
ing been  reproved.  Even  those  who  strive  to  be  perfect  stand  in 
need  of  reproof.  A  true  scholar  holds  possession  of  himself,  neither 
by  riches  nor  poverty  forced  away  from  his  virtue."  2 

1  Mencius,  IV.  PT.  i.  xvii. 

*  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  ii.  xxv.  ;  II.  PT.  i.  viii. ;  IV.  PT.  n.  xviii.,  xiv.  ;  VII.  PT.  11.  xxxii.  ;  VII. 
PT.  i.  iv.  ;  IV.  PT.  L  xix.;  VII.  PT.  n.  xxxii.;  IV.  PT.  i.  xxii.,xxi. ;  VII.  PT.  i.  ix. 


654  SAGES. 

Here  is  the  Socratic  "daemon"  or  warning  voice  within  : 

"  Let  not  a  man  do  what  his  sense  of  right  bids  him  not  to  do,  nor 
desire  what  it  forbids  him  to  desire.  This  is  sufficient.  The  skilful 
artist  will  not  alter  his  measures  for  the  sake  of  a  stupid  workman. 
When  right  ways  disappear,  one's  person  must  vanish  with  one's  prin- 
ciples. The  honor  which  man  confers  is  not  true  honor.  Those  to 
whom  Chaou  Mang  gave  rank,  he  can  degrade  again.  He  whose  good 
name  comes  from  what  he  is,  needs  no  trappings.  The  ancients  culti- 
vated the  nobility  of  Heaven,  leaving  that  of  men  to  follow  in  its  train. 
Serving  Heaven  consists  in  nourishing  the  real  constitution  of  our 
being,  anxious  neither  about  death  nor  life." l 

II.  The  substance  of  the  social  ideal  is  benevolence  and 
Social  justice.  "To  say  'I  cannot  be  humane  and  just/ 
ideal.  is  t0  throw  oneself  away." 2  But  the  basis  is  pa- 
triarchal. "  Shun  held  the  conquest  of  all  the  hearts  of 
his  people  as  but  a  bundle  of  grass,  so  long  as  he  had  not 
gained  those  of  his  parents."  3 

In  dealing  with  provocations,  the  Buddhist,  Stoic,  and 
Chinese  sages  have  reached  the  same  secret  of  equanimity. 

"  If  one  treat  me  unreasonably  I  will  say,  '  I  must  have  been  want- 
ing in  kindness  or  propriety.  How  else  should  this  have  happened  ?' 
Then  I  will  mend  my  ways.  If  the  other  continue  perverse,  I  must 
have  self-respect  enough  to  say,  '  I  must  have  failed  to  do  my  best.' 
If  all  is  vain,  I  say,  *  Why  vex  myself  about  a  wild  beast  ? '  Thus  the 
wise  has  life-long  vigilance,  but  not  one  morning's  serious  trouble. 
To  nourish  the  mind,  there  is  nothing  better  than  to  make  the  desires 
few.':  4 

"  By  virtue  alone  in  itself,  one  never  reaches  rule  over  men's  hearts. 
He  must  make  his  virtue  sustain  others."  "  Good-will  subdues  its 
opposite,  as  water  fire."  6 

"  Friendship  with  a  man  is  friendship  with  his  virtue." G 

"  A  people's  limits  do  not  consist  in  dykes  and  borders."  "The 
Political  security  of  a  State  is  not  in  the  strength  of  mountains  and 
ideal.  streams.  No  advantages  compare  with  the  accord  of 
men."  7 

1  Mencius,  VII.  PT.  i.  xvii.,  xli.,  xlii. ;  VI.  PT.  i.  xvii.  ;  VII.  PT.  i.  i. 

2  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  i.  x.  3  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  i.  xxviii. 

4  Ibid  ,  IV.  PT.  n.  xxviii.  ;  VII.  PT.  n.  xxxv. 

5  Ibid.,  IV.  PT.  n.  xvi. ;  VI.  PT.  i.  xviii.        «  Ibid.,  V.  PT.  n.  iii.        7  Ibid  ,  II.  PT.  n.  i. 


MENCIUS.  655 

"  Abstract  good  principles  are  not  enough  to  give  the  kingdom 
peace  :  laws  cannot  execute  themselves.  If  the  good  and  wise  be  not 
trusted,  the  State  will  come  to  nought.  The  people  are  the  most  im- 
portant element  in  a  State  :  the  ruler  is  the  least.  The  empire  is  not 
given  by  one  man  to  another.  The  choice  of  Heaven  is  shown  in  the 
conduct  of  men.  It  is  an  old  rule,  that  the  oppressor  may  be  put 
to  death  without  warning.  King  Seuen  asked  about  relatives  of  the 
ruler,  when  high  ministers.  Mencius  replied  that,  if  he  had  great 
faults  and  would  not  hear  advice,  they  should  dethrone  him.  The 
King  changed  countenance."  ' 

The  king  is  counselled  to  become  the  parent  of  the  peo- 
ple, by  personal  attention  to  the  characters  of  officials  ; 
to  set  example  to  others  by  domestic  virtues  ;  not  to  pity 
brute  creatures  and  neglect  men  ;  to  see  that  all  had  means 
of  livelihood  and  resource  against  famine,  with  leisure  for 
personal  culture  ;  that  schools  were  well  conducted  and 
their  standard  high.  The  families  of  criminals  should  not 
be  involved  in  their  punishment ;  the  destitute  should  be 
objects  of  public  care.  Mencius  is  a  free-trader.  Taxing 
trade  originated  in  punishments  inflicted  by  the  people  on 
a  mean  and  grasping  dealer.2 

"  When  men  die  of  famine,  you  say  it  is  the  season  that  is  to  blame. 
What  does  this  differ  from  saying,  when  you  have  caused  a  man's 
death,  'It  was  not  I,  but  the  weapon?'  'When  a  public  officer  is 
neglectful  or  cruel,  what  would  you  do  with  him  ?'  '  Cast  him  off,' 
replies  the  King.  'When  in  the  whole  kingdom  there  is  no  good 
government,  what  then  ? '  King  Seuen  looked  to  the  right  and  left,  and 
spoke  of  other  matters.  '  When  the  old  and  weak  are  found  lying  in 
ditches,  and  your  granaries  are  full,  and  none  of  your  prefects  have 
told  you  of  these  things,  do  not  blame  the  people  that  they  seize  their 
opportunity  to  repay  such  treatment.'  '  If  you  know  a  tax  to  be  un- 
just, end  it  at  once.'  "3 

The  condition  of  all  prosperity  is  physical  well-being  ; 
without  it  culture  is  impossible ;  and  punishment  L*ndand 

.  r  School 

of   the  crime  that   is  caused  by  want  of  opportu-  system. 

1  Mencius,  IV.  PT.  i.  i.  ;  VII.  PT.  11.  xii  ,  xiv. ;  V.  PT.  i.  v. :  V.  PT.  n.  iv.,  ix. 
3  Ibid.,  I.  PT.  n.  vii.  ;  I.  PT.  i.  i.  vii.  in. ;  I.  PT.  n.  v. ;  II.  PT.  i.  v. ;  II.  PT.  n.  x. 
8  Ibid.,  I..PT.  i.  iii.  ;  I.  PT.  H.  vi. ;  I.  PT.  H.  xii.;  II.  PT.  n.  iv.  ;  III.  PT.  n.  viii. 


656  SAGES. 

nity  to  earn  a  living  is  simply  a  man-trap.1  The  true 
land  system  is  the  village  division  into  nine  squares,  with 
a  central  field  for  public  tillage,  with  mutual  aid  in  every 
kind  of  need.2  "  Closed  parks  are  pitfalls  in  a  kingdom." ' 

"  Great  generals  are  great  criminals.  They  who  delight  in  war  de- 
Military  serve  the  highest  punishment  (though  war  is  allowable  when 
affairs.  just  or  necessary).  The  hearts  of  men  do  not  submit  to 
force,  but  to  virtue.  Of  the  true  king  the  Shu  says,  *  There  was  not  a 
thought  but  did  him  homage.'  "  4 

Mencius  teaches  that  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire, 
Labor.  which  should  be  estimated  by  the  service  done. 
The  head  must  direct  the  hand.  The  ruler  must  submit 
his  judgment  to  those  who  have  fitted  themselves  to  fulfil 
required  functions,  just  as  he  would  order  his  chief  lapi- 
dary to  cut  and  polish  a  stone,  instead  of  putting  this  tal- 
ent aside  to  follow  his  own  ignorance.5  The  official, 
who  is  out  of  his  true  place,  is  fit  only  to  bring  death  on 
himself.6 

But  Mencius  is  Chinese  in  his  respect  for  subordinations, 
Social  and  recurs  with  interest  to  the  complicated  system 
order.  of  the  old  Tcheou  dynasty,  which  had  been  broken 
up  in  his  day  by  the  law  of  the  strongest  among  the  feu- 
dal chiefs.  He  had  searched  for  the  records  which  these 
chiefs  had  made  away  with,  and  apparently  learned  much 
of  the  old  regime  developed  from  the  character  and  tradi- 
tions of  the  people.  He  hardly  could  have  expected  to 
introduce  such  artificial  distributions  as  we  now  find  in 
the  Tcheou-li ;  but  he  distinctly  perceives  the  need  of 
peaceable  reconstruction,  based  on  the  historical  conti- 
nuity of  the  State. 

A  few  points  of  great  significance  are  to  be  noted  in  the 
Mencian  idea  of  reform. 

1  Mencius,  III.  PT.  i.  iii.  *  Ibid.  8  Ibid.,  I.  PT.  n.  ii. 

*  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  n.  iv. ;  II.  PT.  i.  iii. ;  IV.  PT.  i.  xiv.  •  ibid.,  I.  PT.  n.  ix. 

«    Ibid.,  VII.   PT.   II.  Xxix. 


MENCIUS.  657 

As  Confucius  had  urged  a  central  monarchy,  so  Mencius, 
more  intensely  moved  by  the  increasing  miseries  Right  of 
of  the  time,  pressed  the  counterbalancing  element  Revoiu- 
of  popular  rights,  and  especially  the  right  of  regi- 
cide.    He,  more  than  any  one,  seems  to  have  awakened  in 
the  national  mind   this   great  offset  to  patriarchal  ideas, 
demonstrating  the  capacity  of  the  Chinese  to  escape  these 
limits,  through  their  tendency  to  equilibrium  and  balance 
of  powers. 

Adhering  to  the  monarchical  principle  and  the  cherished 
right  to  be  well  governed,  he  all  the  more  earnestly 
insists  that  government- was  founded  on  the  good  mentfor 
of  the  masses.  He  is  emphatically  the  People's  ^p**1*- 
Advocate,  the  Chinese  Tribune.  Had  China  been  of  less 
extent,  and  less  absorbed  in  patriarchalism,  Mencius,  it 
is  easy  to  believe,  would  have  reached  the  principle  of 
representative  government.  He  was  no  friend  to  heredi- 
tary monarchy,  and  wanted  a  popular  expression  in  the 
choice  of  rulers.1  He  had  a  keen  sense  of  the  danger  that 
China  would  fall  to  the  level  of  the  barbarous  tribes  from 
which  new  States  were  being  periodically  formed.  "  I  have 
never  heard  of  our  own  people  being  improved  by  barba- 
rians. I  have  heard  of  birds  leaving  dark  valleys  for  lofty 
trees  :  but  not  of  their  leaving  the  trees  for  the  valleys."  2 

He  gave  much  thought  to  resisting  extreme  doctrinaires. 
In  those  times  of '  social  fermentation  schemes  for 

Against 

reconstituting    society   found .  ready   hearing,    till  doctri- 
they  "  had  quite  filled  the  kingdom."  3     They  are  naires' 
of    interest  to  us  as  showing    how  similarly  all  races  of 
civilized  men  react  from   systematic  rules  of  balance  and 
"  the   Mean,"   to  one   or  another  extreme.      There   were 
sectaries  who  protested  against  a  division  of  labor,  and 
thought  a  man  made  for  nothing  but  to  get  subsistence  by 

i  Mencius,  V.  PT.  i.  v.  2  Ibid.,,  III.  PT.  i.  iv. 

3  Ibid,  III.  PT.  n.  ix. 

42 


658  SAGES. 

his  own  handiwork.  Mencius  refutes  the  theory  that  every 
one  who  does  not  perform  the  manual  labors  necessary  to 
produce  all  he  lives  on  is  an  oppressor,  by  showing  the 
absurdity  of  any  one's  trying  to  be  independent  of  the 
labor  of  others,  as  well  as  of  contemning  all  products  ex- 
cept those  of  the  hands,  in  an  argument  applicable  to  all 
forms  of  government,  and  as  timely  to-day  as  it  was  two 
thousand  years  ago.1  His  healthy  common  sense  rejected 
equally  Yang's  theory  that  self  was  all,  and  Mih's  that  all 
men,  as  brothers,  must  be  treated  precisely  alike.  He  de- 
manded respect  for  differences  of  character,  and  at  the 
same  time  for  the  duties  of  each  to-the  whole.  Even  Tsze- 
moh's  middle  ground  between  the  extremists  displeased 
him  as  being  a  rigid  rule  of  square,  and  leaving  no  free- 
dom to  act  as  circumstances  should  demand.  "  What  I 
dislike  in  holding  to  one  point  alone  is  the  injury  it  does 
to  principles  ;  by  taking  up  one  point,  it  disregards  a  hun- 
dred others."  2 

But  the  appearance  of  these  ethical  ultraists  was  an  in- 
structive phenomenon  in  Chinese  life. 

The  "  selfish  philosophy  "  of  Yang  seems  to  have  been  to 
Selfish  an  extent  bitter  and  cynical.  Life  was  vanity, 
phy °oT  because  it  had  miseries  and  ended  in  death  :  what 
Yang.  was  the  use  of  it  ?  There  is  nothing  new  under  the 
sun,  and  never  will  be  any  thing.  Take  all  things  how- 
ever with  resignation,  since  you  cannot  change  them.  Why 
wish  to  prolong  life,  or  why  hasten  to  die  ?  Endure  and 
wait,  indifferent  to  both.  Yang  looked  at  virtue  as 
something  doomed  to  misery  and  failure.  Not  one  of  the 
great  or  good  had  known  a  day  of  joy  ;  even  their  fame 
was  a  figment,  since  they  could  not  enjoy  it  after  death. 
The  wicked  on  the  other  hand  are  happy,  while  they  live 
and  gratify  themselves,  and  know  nothing  of  their  evil 
repute  after  death.  Yang's  pessimism  is  obvious  ;  but  he 

1  Mencius,  III.  PT.  i.  iv.  2  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  i.  xxvi. 


MENCIUS.  659 

does  not  draw  from  it  any  argument  for  vice.  He  simply 
supplies  no  high  motive,  and  falls  back  on  inertia  :  an  ex- 
ample of  how  puzzling  are  the  problems  of  life  without 
moral  or  aesthetic  enthusiasm  to  override  them.  His 
equanimity  as  to  events,  and  his  utter  scepticism  as  to 
what  are  called  the  rewards  of  conduct,  do  not  lead  him  to 
abuse  of  virtue  or  hatred  of  its  supporters.  His  despair 
was  a  natural  result  of  the  time.  Mencius,  however,  saw 
its  demoralizing  tendency,  and  denounced  it.1  He  prob- 
ably did  not  recognize  the  naturalness  of  its  reaction 
against  the  extreme  claims  set  up  by  the  Confucians  for 
the  actual  power  of  virtue  over  men. 

Mih-teih  was  a  more  active  spirit  who  went  for  simple 
habits  and  broad  benevolence.     His  fault,  for  Men- 


cius,  was  in  changing  the  national  customs  to  the  tic  theory 
detriment  of  the  family  and  its  special  claims,  universal 
Here  again  was  a  natural  reaction.  We  wonder  Love- 
there  were  not  more  like  it.  Against  the  profound  distinc- 
tions and  subordinations  of  patriarchal  ethics,  Mih-teih 
demanded  that  universal  love  should  be  held,  in  every  rela- 
tion alike,  the  supreme  motive.  He  traced  all  social  evils 
to  one-sided  and  exclusive  affection.  His  question  how  any 
form  of  wrong-doing  could  occur  to  degrade  persons  or 
States,  if  men  universally  loved  all  others  as  they  love 
themselves,  is  obviously  unanswerable.  This  being  what  ac- 
cording to  his  disciples  he  intended,  it  seems  somewhat  over- 
critical  in  Mencius  to  denounce  propositions  not  more  abso- 
lute than  many  of  his  own,  and  needing  to  be  completed 
rather  than  assailed.  "  What  good  men  hold  their  duty  is 
to  further  all  that  will  benefit  the  kingdom,  and  take  away 
all  that  will  harm  it.  The  law  of  universal  love  will  remove 
every  evil  ;  and  the  only  difficulty  in  acting  in  accordance 
with  it  arises  from  men's  not  seeing  the  advantages  of  it, 
and  rulers  not  having  set  the  example  of  obeying  it."  2 

1  Mencius,  III.,  PT.  n.  ix.  *  Legge's  transl.  of  Mih's  treatise. 


66O  SAGES. 

The  difficulty  with  Mih-teih's  principle  is  its  abolition  of 
all  distinctions.  He  demands  that  princes  care  as  much 
for  other  States  as  for  their  own  ;  that  chiefs  regard  the 
families  of  others  as  their  own.  "  This  principle  is  as  cor- 
rect as  the  sides  of  a  square."  That  is  just  it :  an  abstract 
idea  applied  with  logical  severity  to  every  concrete  relation, 
destroying  all  shades  or  contrasts,  leaving  no  room  for  dis- 
crimination between  persons.  Mih  illustrates  Chinese 
mental  methods,  however,  in  his  logical  deductions. 
"  How  can  a  thing  be  good,  and  yet  incapable  of  being 
put  in  practice?" 

His  dream  of  the  reign  of  universal  love  is  the  ideal  of 
an  unworldly  spirit,  but  it  ignores  the  very  facts  of  personal 
relation  on  which  the  affections  depend.  It  assumes  that 
all  limitations  of  it  by  reason  of  relative  nearness  in  sphere, 
instinct,  or  responsibility  are  selfish ;  which  is  farthest  pos- 
sible from  truth.  He  himself  unconsciously  concedes  that 
differences  of  treatment  are  produced  by  love.  How  other- 
wise can  he  justify  Yu  in  punishing  rebels  to  benefit  the 
empire  ;  or  T'ang  for  not  daring  to  pardon  criminals  ;  or 
Wan  and  Woo  for  rewarding  the  good  and  suppressing  the 
bad  ?  When  he  interprets  his  principle  as  "  making  the 
ruler  gracious  and  the  minister  loyal,  the  father  kind  and 
the  son  filial,  the  elder  brother  friendly,  the  younger  obe- 
dient," he  seems  to  have  conceded  all  that  Mencius  could 
require. 

Dr.  Legge' s  charge  of  arguing  wholly  from  expediency 
does  not  seem  to  be  made  out  by  the  translation  itself. 
The  very  terms  of  Mih's  statement  disarm  it.  Is  it  quite 
fair  to  say  that  he  "stumbled  on  a  great  truth  "  ?  We  fail 
to  see  the  force  of  the  distinction  taken  by  Dr.  Legge,  that 
the  Christian  law  of  love  is  superior  to  Mih's  because  more 
specific,  and  because  "  based  on  loving  God  best." x  We 
should  say  that  love  of  loving  is  a  more  thorough  form  of 

1  Legge,  p.  121. 


MENCIUS.  66l 

• 

the  love-principle  than  "  loving  the  Lord  thy  God."  The 
authority  of  a  personal  sovereign  does  not  add  to  the  sanc- 
tity of  unselfish  love,  nor  to  the  validity  of  morals,  but  re- 
moves them  from  their  basis  in  the  nature  of  mind  to  the 
platform  of  individual  claims.  Nor  is  it  true  that  Christi- 
anity gives  more  detailed  application  to  the  principle  of 
love  than  the  Chinese  sages,  who  in  fact  specially  pursue 
concreteness.  That  "  the  idea  of  man  as  man  cannot  be 
fully  realized,  where  there  is  not  the  right  knowledge  of 
one  living  and  true  God,"  is,  we  think,  true  only  in  a  sense 
at  least  as  far  from  the  views  of  the  author  now  quoted 
respecting  such  right  knowledge  as  from  those  of  Mencius 
or  of  Mih.  The  motive  force  of  Chinese  morality  is  prob- 
ably as  profound  a  reverence  for  essential  right  as  the 
Christian  Scriptures  have  inspired  in  their  followers. 

Two  traits  illustrate  the  representative  character  of  these 
Chinese  sages  (Heen-jin),  whose  lives  and  doctrines  TWO  lead- 
have  now  been  sketched.  One  of  these  is  their  1"g.a'"1,s.. 

of  the  Chj- 

devotion  to  the  Patriarchal  Idea,  which  has  given  nese  sages, 
consistency  and  longevity  to  the  Chinese  State.  Mencius 
constantly  urges  the  relation  of  parent  and  offspring  as  the 
root  of  all  other  relations  and  the  basis  of  politics.  Hence 
no  duty  is  so  incumbent  on  a  prince  as  the  care  of  the  old. 
The  most  unfilial  of  conditions  is  to  be  without  children. 
To  perform  obsequies  to  parents  is  even  more  important 
than  to  serve  them  while  living.  Shun  would  have  aban- 
doned the  empire  itself  to  save  his  father  from  punishment 
for  murder,  by  carrying  him  away  into  concealment,  and 
cheerfully  forgetting  the  duties  of  State.1  This  is  proba- 
bly the  most  absolute  assertion  of  patriarchal  ethics  in  all 
the  Chinese  books. 

The  other  trait  referred  to  is  the  absorbing  interest  of 
these  sages  in  political  life.  Every  thing  in  their  writings 

1  Mencius,  VII.  PT.  i.  xxii. ;  IV.  PT.  i.  xxvii. ;  IV.  PT.  H.  xiii. ;  VII.  PT.  i.  xxxv. 


tinuo°usC°n~ 


662  SAGES. 

runs  to  governmental  relations.  All  illustrations  are  drawn 
from  princes  and  ministers.  It  almost  seems  as  if  the 
Classics  were  written  for  the  instruction  of  rulers  alone. 
If  Mencius  would  describe  his  own  power  of  judging  men 
from  their  words,  he  at  once  refers  to  its  advantages  as  aid 
in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs.1  If  he  would  describe  the 
most  interior  laws  of  self-culture,  it  is  but  as  a  means  of 
giving  counsel  to  rulers.2  An  old  ode  of  the  Shi  pictures 
the  care  with  which  a  bird  builds  her  nest  above  the  pass- 
ing crowds.  Confucius  comments  ;  "  Did  not  he  who 
made  this  ode  understand  government  ?  "  And  Mencius 
adds,  "  Who  will  dare  insult  him  who  knows  how  to  govern 
aright  ?  "  3 

The  limitations  of  such  traits  as  these  in  an  ethico-politi- 
cal  teacher  are  obvious.  But  if  the  power  of  such 
a  teacher  everywhere  must  consist,  not  in  attempt- 
evolution.  ing  to  eradicate  the  root  qualities  of  his  people, 
but  in  directing  them  according  to  their  best  capacity, 
Confucius  and  Mencius  certainly  struck  the  right  path. 
Their  constant  reference  to  ideals  in  the  past  are  not  the 
drawbacks  to  progress  they  at  first  appear,  but  practically 
set  their  ideals  in  the  future  as  much  as  our  own  direct 
appeal  to  it.  The  only  difference  is  that  in  China  no  future 
is  believed  to  be  separable  from  the  past.  Evolution  is  the 
eternal  law,  in  the  sense  that  nothing  can  appear  in  the 
result  which  had  not  its  adequate  ground  in  the  beginning. 
Thus  the  root  of  things  is  not  in  what  is  less  than  them- 
selves, but  in  what  is  greater.  No  petty  "  plasm,"  but  the 
cosmos  itself  explains  the  origin  of  living  man. 

This  cling  of  Chinese  sages  to  continuity  in  historical 
movement  is  the  secret  of  the  national  permanence.  To 
every  civilized  people  in  some  form  a  corresponding  respect 

1  Mencius,  II.  PT.  i.  ii.  17. 

J  Ibid.,    IV.   PT.   i.   iv.  ;    VI.   PT.    n.  xv.    i,   2;    VII.    PT.   i.     xviii.,  xx.  ;    IV.    PT.    i. 

xxviii.,  2. 

3  Ibid.,  II.   PT.    i.  iv. 


MENCIUS.  663 

for  its  own  origin  and  traditions  is  one  of  the  main  condi- 
tions of  enduring  life.  The  incessant  appeal  to  politico- 
filial  piety  made  in  the  Classics  affords  a  perpetual  stimulus 
to  political  culture  at  its  higher  levels,  and  plays  the  part 
fulfilled  in  races  of  warmer  temperament  by  what  we  call 
patriotism  and  public  spirit. 

Confucius  and  Mencius  were  in  fact  reformers  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word.     Their  whole  aim  was  con-  Reformers 
structive,  the  rectification  of  personal  and  political   by  con- 
character.      The  public  life  of  China   takes   from  moral""5 
them  a  fresh  impulse,  and  receives  a  systematic  force- 
form,  an  educational  stamp.     Definitely  the  two  great  for- 
ces counterbalancing  imperial  absolutism  are  largely  due 
to  these  two  men  :  the  rise  of  the  literary  class  to  Confu- 
cius ;  responsibility  of  rulers  to  the  right  of  revolution  and 
regicide,  to  Mencius. 

In  fine,  our  tribute  is  due  to  the  single-mindedness  of 
teachers,  every  one  of  whose  words  bore  directly  on  the 
idea  for  which  they  lived  ;  the  sovereign  rights  of  virtue  in 
the  making  of  men  and  the  ruling  of  States.  No  rank  was 
too  high,  no  class  too  humble,  to  be  taught  this  universal 
principle.  With  no  other  personal  authority  than  the  con- 
viction of  its  indispensableness,  these  men  went  forth  from 
their  self-study  filled  with  the  dignity  conferred  by  this  all- 
saving  word,  to  demand  of  kings  and  peoples  the  square 
acceptance  of  its  claims.  They  demanded  that  its  appeal  to. 
the  moral  and  spiritual  nature  should  be  substituted  for  the 
right  of  the  stronger,  and  for  every  form  of  arbitrary  will, 
in  the  growth  of  character  or  the  rule  of  States ;  dealing 
as  plainly  with  the  foolish  and  cruel  as  with  the  well-dis- 
posed in  their  rude  and  semi-barbarous  day.  Always  calm, 
serious,  regardful  of  all  sides  and  of  all  needs,  constructive 
and  genial,  open-eyed  to  opportunity,  ever  consequent  in 
the  logic  of  humanity  and  honor,  they  gathered  up  the  best 
in  the  faith  and  feeling  of  their  people  in  the  hour  of  its 


664 


SAGES. 


need.  They  have  shown  that  Rationalism  can  be  an  affir- 
mation of  religion,  as  universal  as  the  demands  of  life. 
And  the  attestation  to  their  greatness  is  that  veneration  of 
ages  which  is  the  people's  gratitude  to  those  who  have  un- 
derstood its  heart. 


BELIEFS. 


I. 

FOUNDATIONS. 


FOUNDATIONS. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

HE  account  now  given  of  Chinese  traits  and  institu- 
tions prepares  us  to  interpret  the  ways  in  variou? 
which    this  peculiar   people  have   recognized   the    estimates 

*;  of  Chinese 

relations  of  human  nature  with  the    Infinite  and  religious 


T 


Eternal  ;  in  other  words,  with  the  Universe  as  a 
Whole.  This  recognition,  as  a  form  of  conviction  and 
aspiration,  —  which  is  what  we  properly  mean  by  religion, 
—  is  an  organic  necessity  ;  not  only  underlying  all  special 
or  positive  religions,  but  prompting  them  to  a  life  beyond 
themselves. 

Yet  we  are  met  on  the  threshold  by  the  square  denial 
that  the  Chinese  have  any  religion.  We  are  asked  to  be- 
lieve that  a  quarter  of  the  human  race  have  achieved  a  vast 
and  permanent  civilization,  while  devoid  of  capacity  for 
that  which  is  asserted  in  the  same  breath  to  be  the  source 
of  all  personal  and  social  good.  More  astounding  than  the 
statement  itself,  is  the  fact  that  its  suicidal  consequences 
should  have  escaped  the  notice  of  its  authors.  Where  is 
the  indispensableness  of  religion,  if  such  effects  are  pro- 
ducible without  it  as  the  Chinese  Empire  exhibits  ?  Ben- 
jamin Constant  asserts  broadly  that  religion  in  China  is  but 
a  matter  of  usage,  maintained  by  authority,  all  sentiment 
and  conviction  extinct  ;  that  the  cultus  of  ancestors  has 
nothing  in  common  with  the  immortality  of  the  soul  ;  that 
rites  addressed  to  Heaven  are  rendered  to  the  Emperor 


668  BELIEFS. 

by  a  people  who  have  lost  the  faculty  of  believing  and  even 
of  desiring.1 

The  reader  of  this  volume  is  already  aware  that,  while 
the  evils  of  mechanical  culture  in  China  are  too  obvious  for 
discussion,  negations  like  the  above  can  serve  no  other 
purpose  than  to  prove  the  ignorance  of  the  writers  and  of 
their  times.  A  more  definite  study  of  the  inner  life  of 
this  people  will  be  necessary  to  show  how  exaggerated  the 
picture  is,  not  only  in  general  outlines,  but  in  every  detail. 
But  the  inquiry  has  a  larger  scope;  the  phenomena  will 
indicate  the  breadth  of  a  demand  in  human  nature  that 
can  assume  forms  so  widely  differing  as  the  traditions 
of  the  Aryan,  Shemitic,  and  Chinese  races.  It  is  there- 
fore an  incomparable  school  for  the  study  of  Universal 
Religion. 

Wuttke,  a  Hegelian  historian,  finds2  that  the  Chinese  idea 
of  man's  relations  with  the  Infinite  is  only  that  of  "  the  par- 
ticular with  the  general ;  excluding  not  only  prayer,  sacri- 
fice, and  atonement,  but  all  the  pathos  and  tragedy  of  life, 
and  substituting  such  symbolic  play  as  burning  paper  or 
performing  official  routines  :  in  fine,  making  any  thing  like 
religious  institutions  impossible,  since  a  church  is  but  a 
method  of  reconciliation  with  God,  of  which  the  Chinese 
has  no  conception."  Writers  who  are  too  much  absorbed 
in  dogmatic  Christianity  to  measure  any  other  form  of  be- 
lief, can  hardly  be  expected  to  afford  positive  data  less  in- 
accurate than  the  blind  assertions  of  Constant.  It  is  not 
true  that  the  religious  idea  in  China  means  merely  the  re- 
lation of  the  particular  to  the  general,  nor  that  the  sym- 
bolic rites  and  routines  of  the  people  are  "  substituted  "  for 
serious  experiences.  We  do  not  admit  that  the  "  tragedy 
and  pathos  of  life,"  either  in  China  or  elsewhere,  are  de- 
pendent on  prayer,  sacrifice,  or  atonement ;  nor  that  a 

1  CEuvres  Posthum.  sur  la  Polyth.  Rom.,  II.  231,  232. 
*  Gesch.  d.  Heidenthums,  II.  62-67. 


FOUNDATIONS.  669 

community  is  incapable  of  religious  institutions  because  it 
has  no  Church,  in  the  Christian  sense  of  the  word. 

How  opposite  a  view  may  be  taken  of  the  same  phenom- 
ena appears  in  the  following  resume"  by  Courcy  1  :  — 

"  China  was  always  distinguished  among  pagan  cults  for  the  inno- 
cence and  purity  of  its  religious  institutions.  Recognizing,  at  the 
outset,  the  existence  of  the  Supreme  Being,  and  of  a  Will  regulative 
of  the  forces  of  the  universe  ;  proscribing  human  sacrifices  and  obscene 
rites,  which  stained  Egypt,  Judea,  Rome,  and  Greece  ;  regulated  and 
commented  for  thirty  centuries  by  sages  who  derived  the  art  of  gov- 
erning men  from  the  religious  sentiment,  —  Chinese  polytheism  was 
always  remarkably  intelligent  and  chaste." 

But  here  too  are  phrases  which,  if  taken  in  the  popular 
sense,  would  be  likely  to  mislead.  The  Chinese  idea  of  "a 
Supreme  Being,"  or  "  a  Will  regulating  the  forces  of  the 
universe,"  is  quite  dissimilar  to  that  of  the  Christian  super- 
naturalist  ;  and  it  is  in  no  such  sense  as  his  use  of  terms 
would  convey,  that  the  polytheism  of  ancient  China  has 
been  revered  by  later  philosophers. 

We  cannot   understand  the  religion  of  China  without 
comprehending  the  bearings  of  the  fact  that  her  Conditions 
civilization   is,   in   important  points,   antipodal    to  of  aPPre- 
ours.     Its   attitude  toward    the  worlds   of   matter 
and  man  is   determined   by  constitutional  peculiarities  as 
distinctive  as  those  which  have  produced  the  faith  of  the 
Shemites,  or  the  intellectual  qualities  of  the  Aryans.     The 
earliest  form  of  social  organization  that  could  be  endowed 
with  order,  law,  and  mutual  guarantee   has  in   China  ab- 
sorbed the  religious  ideal,  and  held  it  fast  in  patriarchal 
moulds.      In  other  words,  this  type   of  the  Family  Aspatri_ 
Idea  has  here  grown  into  the  Tribe,  the  Clan,  the  archai 
Civil  and  Political  Order.     It  has  become  the  reli-  evo!ution' 
gion  of  a  civilization.     This  is  the  evolution  we  are  study- 
ing ;  its  permanent  types,  its  developed  culture,  its  educa- 

1  V Empire  du  Milieu,  pp.  218-219. 


6/O  BELIEFS. 

tional  powers,  its^  banes  and  blessings.  And  so  we  begin 
by  noting  a  right  to  such  evolution  in  the  Patriarchal 
Family  Bond,  not  inferior  to  that  of  Theocracy  in  the 
Hebrew,  or  Individualism  in  the  Christian  mind. 


PATRIARCHALISM. 

THAT  Universal  Religion  affirms  identity  of  ideas  in  all 
Definition  aSes  an(^  races  is  an  error,  which  would  make  it 
of  univer-  deny  progress.  An  idea  is  universal  when  it  ex- 
ists in  every  age  and  race,  by  force  of  human 
nature  and  by  the  laws  of  growth,  in  the  form  and  at  the 
stage  of  development  of  which  such  age  and  race  are  capa- 
ble. This  law  should  hold  as  true  of  the  present  as  of  the 
past,  and  obliges  us  to  refer  both,  for  interpretation  and 
criticism,  to  a  better  idea  yet  to  be  made  actual,  of  which 
they  are  alike  the  conditions.  We  are  accustomed  to  speak 
of  the  Family  as  the  basis  of  our  civilization  ;  yet  we  are 
apt  to  forget  that,  under  various  meanings,  it  has  been  the 
Their  inspiration  of  many  phases  of  social  life  widely  dif- 
phases  ferinff  from  our  own.  The  truth  of  our  axiom  that 

guarantee 

progress,  marriage,  as  the  root  of  the  Family,  is  the  prime 
guarantee  of  social  order  does  not  rest  on  the  perfection 
of  marriage  institutions  as  existing  with  us,  but  on  the 
fact  that,  at  every  stage  in  the  development  of  the  Family 
as  an  idea,  marriage  has  in  one  form  or  another 
been  the  sign  and  security  of  what  was  best  in  that 
stage.  "  Every  thing,"  said  Quintilian  of  Roman  society, 
"  is  contained  in  marriage,  —  State,  people,  children,  patri- 
mony, domestic  security :  where  then  is  liberty  so  neces- 
sary ?  "  l  Our  Aryan  form  is  the  result  of  ages  of  elabora- 
tion by  the  highest  races,  and  especially  by  the  Romans  ; 

249,  251. 


PATRIARCHALISM.  67! 

tracing  descriptively  all  resultant  relationships  between  the 
offspring  of  a  single  pair,  in  various  grades,  with  minute 
jealousy  for  the  monogamic  principle,  and  providing  a  dis- 
tinctive name,  with  fixed  rights  and  limits,  for  each  mem- 
ber of  the  family  tree.  But  ruder  types  of  marriage,  as  it 
exists  in  savage  or  semi-civilized  tribes,  are  not  less  truly 
the  high-water  mark  of  the  culture  there  attained  ;  and 
each  of  these  types,  however  low,  embodies  a  step  in  social 
progress  beyond  a  lower  stage.  It  is  equally  obvious  that 
our  own  marriage  laws  await  improvements  from  the  truth 
of  science  and  the  spirit  of  equity.  It  is  then  as  sign  and 
guarantee  of  progress  that  the  forms  of  the  Family  Rela- 
tion have  eminent  function.  And,  in  this  point  of  view, 
even  the  cruder  phases  of  that  relation  will  be  found  com- 
pensatory for  many  repulsive  facts  which  the  study  of 
primitive  human  society  forces  on  our  attention. 

These  historical  phases  cannot  therefore  be  presented  as 
strictly  defined  forms  :  they  are  transitions  of  progress  ; 
reactions  and  interactions,  covering  vast  periods  of  a  social 
evolution  whose  limits  cannot  be  stated,  and  whose  begin- 
ning is  as  unsearchable  as  its  end. 

As  far  back  as  positive  institutions  are  found  runs  the 
Idea  of  the   Family,   as  a   more    or   less  durable  Antiquity 
sexual  union  between  a  greater  or  less  number  of  *"fidj^~ 
individuals,  under  recognized  sanctions  social  and  of  the 
religious.      Of   no  other  existing   relation    is   the  g^y 
antiquity  and  continuity  so  fully  established.     Its 
development   is  like  that  of  the  leaf,  as   main  element  of 
the  plant  at  every  stage  ;  or  like  that  of  the  type  of  an 
animal  series,  found  alike  in  its  earliest  and  latest  forms. 
It  is  the  constructive  atom  of  civilization ;  the  social  mole- 
cule :  and  its  value  is  represented  in  the  increasing  vener- 
ation with  which  human  experience  has  regarded  it.     It  is 
the  exponent   of  man's  perpetual  endowment  with   powers 
of  creation,  love,  and  law.     It  means,  creation,  as  securing 


6/2  BELIEFS. 

to  his  generative  function  the  power  to  effect  that  con- 
tinuity of  life  which  is  at  once  his  aim  as  a  social  being 
and  his  first  hint  of  immortality,  as  well  as  his  later  argu- 
ment for  its  truth.  It  means  law,  as  gradually  ennobling 
his  sexual  instinct  by  self-restraint  and  mutual  supervision, 
by  the  motive  of  protecting  the  weak,  and  by  respect  for 
the  virtue  of  chastity.  It  means  love,  independently  of 
its  relation  to  the  sentiments,  as  organizing  complex  social 
unities,  whose  private  bond  is  placed  under  public  sanc- 
tions, and  whose  currents  set  towards  mutual  guarantees 
on  the  largest  social  scale. 

Deep  as  is  the  root  of  marriage,  as  exponent  of  the 
Marriage  Family,  in  the  social  being  of  man,  it  is  nevert  he- 
primitive  IGSS  certam  tnat  tnis  institution  is  in  no  sense 
family  tie.  primitive;  that  it  was  a  great  step  in  progress, 
developed  out  of  a  social  state  of  vast  and  unknown  dura- 
tion, in  which  such  guarantees  had  no  existence.  And  the 
compensation  for  this,  in  many  respects,  repulsive  fact  is 
the  equal  certainty  that  germs  of  this  beneficent  step  were 
working  towards  it  throughout  that  long  and  hidden  period 
of  Nature's  gestation  of  social  man. 

The  most  civilized  races  have  consecrated  the  organized 
Ante-patri-  Patriarchal  Family  as  the  primal  form  of  human 
L'xua"!  reia-  s°ciety.  Their  religious  myths  have  even  repre- 
tions.  sented  it  as  an  idyllic,  if  not  an  ideal,  state.  The 
Western  poet,  trained  by  his  Shemitic  Bible,  sings  of  the 
"  world's  gray  fathers  coming  forth  to  watch  the  rainbow's 
sacred  sign  ;  "  or  of  "  Jacob's  sonnes,"  who 

"In  the  calm  golden  evenings  lay 
Watering  their  flocks  ;  and  having  spent 
Those  white  dayes,  drove  home  to  their  tent 
Their  well-fleeced  traine." 

So  the  Mongol,  on  the  opposite  hemisphere,  points  with 
pride  to  his  living  imperial  representative  of  a  patriarchal 


PATRIARCHALISM.  •  6/3 

chief,  who  organized  the  "  hundred  "  original  families  of 
China.  A  recent  writer,  whose  researches  on  early  social 
construction  have  great  value  within  the  Aryan  sphere, 
describes  the  main  idea  of  patriarchal  life,  —  namely,  that 
"  reproductive  power  was  exclusively  in  the  male  parent," 
—  as  the  basis  of  the  earliest  human  religion.1 

But  patriarchalism,  loosely  definable  as  that  form  of  the 
family  in  which  the  house-father  is  the  fixed  centre  and 
absolute  law,  is  now  seen  to  have  been  but  a  phase  in  the 
evolution  of  the  family ;  not  its  original  germ.  It  was  neither 
an  instant  endowment  nor  a  supernatural  influx,  but  a  slowly 
attained  result.  The  historical  truth  is  probably  given,  in 
substance,  in  the  statement  that,  according  to  the  natural 
progress  of  social  construction,  children  are  first  regarded 
as  related  to  the  tribe  in  general  ;  second,  to  the  mother 
and  not  to  the  father  ;  third,  to  the  father  and  not  to  the 
mother  ;  and  only  at  last  to  both.2 

These  views  can  hardly  be  offered,  at  this  stage  of  in- 
quiry, as  mere  hypothesis  ;  since  they  depend  on  the  dictum 
of  no  individual,  but  on  careful  researches  extending  through 
the  primitive  races  of  all  the  continents,  and  are  enforced 
by  indications  of  "  survivals  "  in  the  higher  races  also.  It 
seems  clear  that  the  earliest  known  individual  rela- 

Their 

tions  were  determined,  not  by  the  family  bond  at  all  systems  of 
as  a  fixed  limit,  but  by  sexual  promiscuity  in  which 
parentage  is  matter  of  pure  uncertainty,  and  each  person 
is  consequently  held  related  to  large  masses  of  men  and 
women  as  a  whole.  Thus  in  certain  "  Turanian  "  systems 
of  kinship,  the  terms  father  and  mother  do  not  represent 
actual  progenitors  at  all.3  The  typical  form  of  this  homo- 
geneous stage  of  society  is  found  in  the  family  system  of 
the  Hawaiians,  in  which  grades  of  relationship  are  massed 

1  De  Coulanges,  La  Cite  Antique,  pp.  36,  37. 

*  Lubbock,  Orig.  of  Civiliz.,  p.  113. 

8  Morgan,  Smithson.  Contrib.  (No.  xvii.  p.  394) and  Ancient  Society  (1877),  p.  437. 

43 


6/4  BELIEFS. 

according  to  generations  ;  each  of  which,  as  a  whole,  is 
brought  into  the  direct  line  of  descent,  as  if  no  distinction 
were  made  in  the  sexual  rights  of  any  of  its  members.  In 
other  words,  all  brothers,  sisters,  cousins,  are  held  alike  as 
fathers  or  mothers  of  the  children  of  each  one  ;  all  who 
belong  to  the  next  preceding  generation  are  grandparents 
to  these  children  ;  and  all  of  the  next  succeeding  genera- 
tion are  in  turn  children  to  the  latter.1  Evidences  of  the 
extension  of  similar  systems  are  abundant,  and  even  higher 
forms  of  the  family  organization  retain  vestiges  of  these 
earlier  stages.  Thus  the  Chinese  still  counts  kindred  in 
nine  lineal  degrees  ;  calls  the  sons  of  his  brother  his  own 
sons,  and  is  called  father  by  them  ;  thus  putting  all  of  the 
same  generation  into  one  category.2  Nothing  similar  has 
been  found  in  the  earliest  Indo-European  life,  which  seems 
to  represent  a  stage  of  the  family  much  more  advanced.3 

Yet  even  this  crude  condition  affords  hints  of  aspiration 
Germsof  for  a  more  definite  order.  Many  American  races 
a  higher  ascribe  the  introduction  of  culture  to  the  marriage 

order  in  ° 

these  of  a  brother  and  sister.4  An  effort  to  distinguish 
systems.  relations  on  some  other  principle  than  sexual  de- 
sire was  that  of  referring  parentage  to  the  female  line,  in 
respect  both  of  name  and  inheritance.  The  family  centred 
The  in  the  mother,  not  in  the  father  ;  and  her  relatives, 
™en*erifas  not  his'  controlled  what  it  transmitted.  This  custom, 
the  family.  So  wholly  opposed  to  later  and  especially  to  patri- 

1  See  Morgan,  Smithson.   Contrib.^  pp.  143,  454.     These  researches  are  of  the  most  ex- 
tended and  thorough  nature  ;  they  mark  a  new  era  in  the  study  of  social  origins.     See  also  on 
the  whole  subject,  McLellan' s  Primitive  Marriage  (Edin.,  1865) ;  Tyler's  Early  History  of 
Mankind,  I.  x ;  Schoolcraft's  Indian  Tribes  (1851);  Bachofen,  Das  Mutterricht  (Stuttgard, 
1861);    Girard  Teulon,  Origenes  de  la    Fam.  (Paris,   1874);    Lubbock,  Orig.  of  Civiliz., 
Vol.  I.  ;    McLellan,  Studies  in  Ancient  History  (1876).      The  views  expressed  in  the  text 
are    independent    of    the    controversy   now  being   waged   between   the   special    theories   of 
Morgan,  McLellan,  and  Bachofen,  on   points   into  which  we  cannot  enter  here.     Nor  can 
we  follow  Morgan  through  his   successive   systems  of  relationship  on  this  primitive  social 
stage.      Ancient  Society,  1877. 

2  Morgan,  p.  422.     So  in  India  and  America. 

8  See  Fick,  Die  Ehemalige  Spracheinheit  d.  Indog.  Eur.,  pp.  267,  268. 
*  Muller,  Die  Amerikan.  Urreligionen. 


PATRIARCHALISM.  675 

archal  ideas,  is  so  common  among  early  races 1  as  apparently 
to  mark  an  epoch  in  the  development  of  society.  It  prob- 
ably arose  from  the  fact  that  the  primitive  promiscuity 
allowed  no  certain  evidence  of  parentage  save  visible  con- 
nection with  the  mother.  An  enduring  witness  of  this 
state  of  things  in  most  rude  races  is  the  strange  custom  of 
the  "  couvade,"  where  the  husband  is  put  through  a  dra- 
matic representation  of  the  act  of  delivery,2  as  if  to  guar- 
antee by  way  of  symbolism  an  otherwise  uncertain  claim. 
So  strong  was  the  tendency  to  precedence  of  the  female, 
that  in  Sumatra  there  exist  proofs  that  the  husband  and  his 
offspring  were  regarded  as  the  property  of  the  wife's  family.8 
In  China  there  remain  penal  laws  restraining  the  old  right 
of  the  wife's  father  to  put  her  husband  out  of  his  house  ; 
and  the  Japanese  have  customs  that  place  the  wife  in 
advance  of  the  husband  as  to  privilege.  In  Africa,  the 
chief  is  commonly  attended  by  a  "sister  "  queen,  to  whom 
all  deference  is  paid.  The  peculiar  prestige  accorded  to 
women  in  these  primitive  times  may  have  had  something 
to  do  with  the  position  of  dignity  which  they  are  known  to 
have  enjoyed  in  the  marriage  laws  of  certain  cultivated 
races,  like  the  Egyptians  and  Persians.  Although  this 
prestige  arose  from  the  conditions  of  an  almost  inorganic 
stage  of  human  life,  it  is  itself  a  step  in  progress.  It  must 
have  cost  ages  of  struggle  with  the  rude  desires  which  it 
sought  to  curb.  It  was  in  fact  a  necessary  means  of  realiz- 
ing the  idea  of  property,  and  marks  the  entrance  of  this 
great  agent  of  civilization  into  the  social  field. 

The  growth  of  the  family  out  of  indiscriminate  sexual 
attractions  is  a  process  which  proves  that  self-re-  Moml 
straint  is  an  inherent  law  of  human  development,   the  family. 

"  It  was  formerly  universal  among  North  American  tribes."  Morgan,  p.  140.  Domenech, 
Great  Amer.  Desert,  II.  304,  307.  Taylor  (Etruscan  Researches,  p.  59)  finds  it  specially 
prevalent  among  "  Turanic"  tribes. 

*  Girard  Teulon,  pp.  193-201  ;  Hellwald,  Culturgesck.,  p.  36 ;  Tylor,  Early  Hist.,  &c. 

'  Teulon,  p.  150. 


676  BELIEFS. 

In  its  strict  sense,  the  family  begins  when  this  process  of 
individuation  has  produced  durable  units  founded  on  such 
limitation  of  the  female  to  one  husband  as  removes  am- 
biguity from  her  offspring,  and  bridles  his  instinct  within 
a  definite  circle.  Here  enter  his  functions  as  protector, 
and  his  self-consciousness  as  originator  of  the  seed  of  life ; 
forces  which  reverse  the  earlier  conditions  of  precedence 
between  the  sexes.  The  result,  after  long  stages,  is  the 
patriarch  with  his  recognized  household  of  one  or  many 
wives,  each  having  her  fixed  relation  to  the  family  guaran- 
teed by  the  whole  social  state ;  and  all  subject  to  that 
paternal  power  of  life  and  death  (patria  potestas),  which 
controls  all  the  older  civilizations,  —  not  less  those  of  Ju- 
dea,  Greece,  Rome,  and  India,  than  those  of  China  and 
Japan. 

It  is  as  idle  to  despise  as  it  is  to  ignore  these  rude  be- 
Thebe-  ginnings  of  social  evolution.  This  gradual  self- 
ginnings  limitation,  these  motives  of  property,  these  changes 
evolution  °f  precedence  between  the  sexes,  are  signs  of  an 

no  argu-  invincible  upward  movement.  They  are  the  slowly 
ment  for  •  f  •  i 

material-  shaped  affirmations  of  man  s  part  in  the  construc- 
tive powers  of  an  infinite  cosmos.  It  is  equally 
unphilosophical  to  pronounce  them  evidences  of  a  degrading 
or  of  a  distinctively  material  origin  of  mind.  Whatever  be 
the  process  of  historical  generation,  it  is  not  the  mere  gen- 
erating atom,  but  the  whole  cosmos  with  its  inscrutable 
substance  (known  only  by  mind,  and  in  mind),  that  is  con- 
cerned in  every  step  towards  the  individuation  of  the  family 
and  the  realized  personality  of  the  soul.  As  every  law  of 
the  universe  must  help  to  lift  the  acorn  into  an  oak,  so  the 
crowning  results  of  the  human  process  can  be  no  isolated 
effect  of  lower  causes,  but  represents  the  convergence  of 
all  lines,  the  common  attraction  of  all  forces,  to  their 
best  resultant  expression,  which  cannot  be  greater  than 
themselves. 


PATRIARCHALISM.  677 

The  institution  of  Marriage,  as  guarantee  of  the  Family 
Bond,   was   the   grand    step   of  self-emancipation  signifi- 
from   rude   instinct.     It   had  to  work  on    natural  canceof 

Marriage 

aggregates,  out  ot   which  groups  were  to  be  con-  in  this 
structed  in  accordance   with  the  needs  of  social  e 
order.     These  groups,  under  marriage  sanctions,  were  the 
units  (gotrams,  gentes,  phratria)  that  afterwards  built  up 
the  cities  and  states  of  antiquity,  under  further  sanctions 
of   religion.     The  extension   of   such  a  family  group  was 
effected  by  the  use  of  certain  fictions  of  assumed  relation- 
ship ;  and  still  more  by  a  method  which  has  probably  been 
almost  universal  at  a  certain  stage  of  progress,  —  that  of 
" exogamy"  or  confinement   to   marriages   outside 
the  tribe.     The  first  ground  of  this  custom,  —  as 
well  as  of  that  of  capturing  wives  from  other  tribes,  which 
is  found  associated  with  it  in  most  primitive  societies1, — 
was  apparently  the  desire  to  obtain  exclusive  sexual  rights, 
without  trespassing  on   the  claims  of  the  whole  tribe  to 
common  possession  of  the  females  within  itself.2     It  was 
thus  developed  as  an  effort  at  self-limitation  ;  a  step  to- 
wards  positive   marriage,    out   of   the  promiscuous  inter- 
breeding of  relatives.     Thus  the  Chinese  have  a  Asinsti- 
tradition  that  Fohi  instituted  true  marriage  among  PJ?^ 

0     1"  oni  in 

"  the  hundred  tribes,"  by  prohibiting  intermarriage  china. 
between  persons  of  the  same  name  ; 3  a  limitation  which 
became  permanent  and  still  remains.  The  common  error 
that  the  number  of  these  names  is  still  just  a  hundred  is 
due  to  the  natural  impression  that  the  uniformity  of  pro- 
hibitory action  would  maintain  the  groups  on  which  it 
acted  at  the  same  figure.  China  has  preserved,  through 
all  ages,  the  vestiges  of  those  successive  steps  by  which 
patriarchal  institutions  were  erected  out  of  the  inorganic 
relations  which  preceded  them. 

1  Taylor,  Etrusc.  Res.  p.  56;  McLellan's  Primitive  Marriage.     Illustrations  in  Ancient 
Hebrew,  Greek,  and  Roman  traditions  are  familiar. 

2  We  must  demur  at  accepting  McLellan's  theory  that  it  was  a  result  of  female  infanticide. 
8  A  similar  prohibition  exists  among  the  gotrams  or  family  tribes  of  India. 


678  BELIEFS. 

Chinese  tradition  further  affixes  this  transition  by  exog- 
Transition  amy  to  TG3^  marriage  to  the  period  when  the  "  black- 
from  com-  haired  "  nomads  settled  in  the  valley  of  the  Hoangho. 
tore*i  It  is  not  improbable  that  the  tradition  in  substance 
marriage  js  COrrect,  and  that  the  change  was  part  of  the  new 

connected 

with  the  social  necessities  brought  by  agriculture,  which  re- 
dustryln""  quires  a  secure  organization  of  the  family.  The 
china.  deliverance  from  rude  communism  would  thus  be 
associated  with  the  birth  of  industrial  life. 

It  is  further  to  be  noted  that  the  Chinese  system  of  con- 
sanguinity, while  it  retains  the  primitive  division  into  great 
lineal  classes  as  before  mentioned,  at 'the  same  time  clearly 
distinguishes  these  collateral  relationships  from  those  which 
result  from  the  true  marriage  relation ;  thus  marking  the 
advance  from  such  lower  conditions.  "  It  must  have  origi- 
nated in  early  days  when  all  looked  on  each  other  as  equally 
members  of  an  increasing  family,  and  any  new  birth  as  in 
relation  with  every  individual  composing  it."  1 

Organic  marriage,  then,  must  have  been  the  result  of  a 
The  Pa-  long  epoch  of  struggle  against  ignorance,  inertia, 
marchai  animal  and  brutal  instincts,  and  a  general  inorganic 

Marriage  .  .  .  rr 

and  Fami-  condition  of  society  ;  a  struggle  acting  at  different 
iiy  a  result  centres  with  different  degrees  of  force.  The  entire 

of  ages  of 

upward  contrast  between  patriarchal  institutions  and  the 
:gle'  relations  that  preceded  it  —  in  such  points  as  de- 
scent by  male  line,  absolute  paternal  power,  jealousy  for 
"  pure  blood,"  and  intense  interest  in  the  male  child  as  car- 
rying on  the  continuity  of  life  —  demonstrate  the  force  of  the 
reaction  and  the  resistance  it  had  to  overcome.  The  energy 
of  this  current,  setting  towards  monogamic  marriage  from 
the  beginning,  sufficiently  indicates  the  natural  validity  of 
this  form,  which  a  theological  interest  has  based  upon 
supernatural  ordinance.  As  the  primitive  prestige  of  the  fe- 

1  Mr.  Hart's  interesting  letter,  quoted  by  Morgan,  is  our  authority  for  these  latter 
statements. 


PATRIARCHALISM.  6/9 

male  is  not  to  be  ascribed  to  real  appreciation  of  her  special 
qualities,  so  the  rule  of  the  male  which  succeeded  Itsinflu. 
it  is  not  explicable  as  a  mere  result  of  tyrannical  ence  on . 
instincts  on  the  part  of  the  husband.     The  con-  tionof 
dition  of  a  woman  was  in  fact  greatly  improved  by  woman- 
the  change  in  her  position  from  the  hetaira  of  the  whole 
tribe  to  the  permanent  wife  of  one  man,  though  sharing 
that  position  with  others ;  and  even  as  his  concubine,  or 
second  wife,  she  became  protected  as  having  a  recognized 
membership  in  his  family.     These  fixed  relations   brought 
out  her  directive  qualities,  and  enforced  respect,  even  in 
patriarchalism,  for  her  aesthetic  and  spiritual  gifts.     Alike 
in  Judea  and  China,  this  regime,  far  from  being  the  sheer 
absolutism  of  the  male,  was  much  modified  by  such  appre- 
ciations ;  and  not  to  speak  of  the  precedence  accorded  the 
female  in  Egypt,  as  described  by  Herodotus,  and  in  Lycia 
by  Polybius,  the  old  Aryan  household,  more  resembling  the 
patriarchal,  called  the  husband /#/*'  (master),  the  wife  pat- 
nia  (mistress) ;  and  its  domestic  relations   appear  to   have 
been  mainly  just  and  equal.1 

The  extent  of  patriarchal  authority  was  determined  by 
social  requirements.     Some  of  these  are  obvious;  itsjustifi- 
such  as  the  security  afforded  to  the  marriage  rela-  ^£m 
tion  by  grouping  the  household  around  an  individ-  needs. 
ual  capable  of  protecting  it ;   and  the  necessity  that  this 
exclusive  relation  to  a  single  household  should  be  sustained 
by  a  corresponding  control  over  its  members,  and  by  com- 
mand of  the  highest  sanctions  known  to  the  State. 

Further ;  as  soon  as  the  Family  becomes  organized,  the 
external  proof  of  parentage,  confined  before  to  the  Origin  of 
female,  gives  way  to  the  distinct  consciousness  of  maiesu- 
paternity.     The  father  is  fully  aware  of  his  func- 
tion as  initial,  and  able  to  identify  his  offspring.    As  the 
responsibilities  of  this  function  become  apparent,  and  the 

1  See  Fick,  Sprachtinheit)  p.  266. 


68O  BELIEFS. 

Family  comes  under  religious  sanctions,  ancestral  rites 
securing  an  earthly  immortality  become  the  all-absorbing 
interest  in  the  life  of  the  Asiatic  man  ;  and  thus  this  male 
supremacy  develops  into  a  "  divine  right ; "  the  wife  and 
child  are  transformed  into  property,  simply  because  in  such 
ages  control  of  the  household  can  mean  nothing  else  than 
property.  Uterine  relatives  are  no  longer  allowed  to  inter- 
fere with  the  descent  by  paternal  line,  because  the  sanctity 
of  the  family  would  be  infringed.  Thus  woman  becomes 
freed  from  her  relatives,  and  finds  a  sphere  for  personal 
influence,  though  within  a  new  form  of  dependence. 

As  for  "  right  of  might,"  it  plays  a  less  important  part 
in  these  changes  than  what  may  be  called  the  religion  of 
the  seed ;  the  necessity  of  a  unitary  household,  and  of  a 
positive  central  authority  for  sacred  rites.  Religion,  again, 
centres  in  the  desire  of  offspring,  —  the  patriarch's  wealth  ; 
and  of  male  offspring,  the  defence  of  his  household,  and 
continuity  of  his  line.1  The  Chinese  say  that  "  death  with- 
out a  son  is  the  greatest  disrespect  to  parents."  Such 
beliefs  indicate  the  causes  of  patriarchal  concubinage,  a 
custom  to  which  religious  motives  imparted  a  quality  not 
of  the  senses  alone. 

The  patria  potestas,  as  power  of  life  and  death  over  the 

family,  is  comprehensible  enough  when  we  remem- 

triapo-      ber   that   in    these   initial    stages    of    society   the 

neceiLiy  Family  was,  in  fact,  the  only  distinctly  organized 

the  first      expression   of   the    State;    and  that  the   right   of 

organizing   ultimate   decision    which    inheres    in   government 

govern-       could  have  no  other  location   than   the  religious, 

moral,  and  social  head  of  the  household.     Of  this 

absorption  of  the  State  in  the  Family,  the  curious  assertion 

of  Mencius  is  in  point;  that  the  duty  of  an  Emperor  to 

1  So  important  is  a  son  in  these  respects,  that  in  China  the  condemned  are  often  reprieved 
till  they  can  obtain  an  heir.  See  also  Vol.  I.  pp.  205,  206,  for  similar  conceptions  by  the 
Hindus. 


PATRIARCHALISM. 


his  father  takes  precedence  of  his  duty  to  the 
itself.  And  while  rejoicing  in  the  progress  which  with- 
draws from  any  class  of  individuals  such  tremendous  X, 
powers  as  are  here  combined,  we  must  not  forget  that  we 
have  more  ground  for  admiration  than  for  self-compla- 
cency in  observing  on  how  vast  a  scale  are  here  developed 
those  virtues  of  filial  piety  and  paternal  care,  which  have 
no  such  prominence  for  civilizations  in  which  equality  (if 
not  equity)  is  the  watchword  of  progress. 

But  the  patria  potcstas  is  by  no  means  an  unqualified  sov- 
ereignty in  forms  of  society  founded  on  patriarch-  Benignity 
alism.  We  have  seen  that  in  India  the  mother  was  of  the  P*- 

triarchal 

religiously  honored,  and  with  her  female  children  relation, 
receives  large  control  over  property  by  descent.  amorg  the 
In  China  she  is  venerated  equally  with  the  father.  to  mother- 
The  Emperor  kotows  to  his  mother,  and  the  Queen  hood- 
dowager  assumes  the  reins  of  State.  The  laws  against 
patricide  and  matricide  are  the  same.  Beating  a  mother  is 
held  so  monstrous  a  crime  that  the  house  of  the  offender  is 
destroyed  with  its  foundations,  and  the  whole  neighborhood 
shares  in  the  penalties.  The  solemn  national  feasts  for  the 
old  are  for  women  as  well  as  for  men.  In  the  exhortations 
of  the  text-books  to  filial  piety  no  distinction  is  ever  made 
between  the  parental  claims. 

So  with  other  patriarchal  races.    The  old  Accadian  laws 
of  Chaldea  forbid  the  son  to  deny  either  parent,1  And  in 
and  refuse  both  ground  and  water  to  the  forsaker  other  na- 
of  his  mother.2     Everywhere,  the  Hebrew  "  Honor 
thy  father  and  thy  mother  "is  the  typical  commandment.3 
The  Hebrew  law  gives  equal  right  to  both  parents  to  bring 
rebellious  children  to  punishment.4     The  laws  of  Solon  en- 
acted that  the  indigent  father  or  mother  shall  be  supported 

1  Tablet  transl.  by  Sayce  in  Records  of  the  Past,  III.  2  Maspero,  p.  141. 

3  Only  the  Egyptian  Ptahhotep  makes  no  mention  of  the  mother  in  his  instructions  on 
Filial  Piety  (Brugsch  Hist.  d.  Egypie,  p.  31). 

4  Deut.,  xxi.  18-21  ;  see  also  Exod.,  xxi.  15 ;  Lev.,  xx.  9. 


682  BELIEFS. 

by  their  offspring  ;  and  he  reproved  one's  permitting  himself 
to  appear  more  just  than  those  who  begot  him.1  "In  no 
wise  displease  thy  mother,"  says  the  Avesta.2  "  Hold  thy 
parents  dearest  of  all,"  says  Cfcero :  "  from  them  come  life, 
property,  liberty,  law." 3  "  Reproach  not  thy  parents," 
says  the  Koran,  "  but  defer  to  them  in  tenderness  ;  saying, 
'  Lord,  have  compassion  on  them  both,  even  as  they  reared 
me  when  I  was  a  little  one.' "  4 

These  illustrations  help  to  explain  the  continuance  of 
The  "patria  sucn  despotic  power  as  the  householder's  for  so 
potestas"  many  ages,  in  such  civilizations  as  China  and 
bTctuseV  Rome.  The  anomaly  was  being  neutralized  all 
growing  tne  wniie  by  natural  affection,  social  necessities, 

type  of  nat-  J  ,  .    ,  ,  r  • 

urai  duties  and  interference  of  the  community  with  self-iso- 
ieds'  lating  family  rights  ;  and  the  patriarchal  forms 
gradually  merged  in  broader  social  elements.  The  / wtria 
potestas  itself  was  not  an  imposed  tyranny,  but  the  unitary 
force  by  which  the  family,  as  groundwork  of  the  State,  was 
at  first  maintained  ;  and  we  hear  in  its  claim  the  voice  of 
Nature  gathering  her  children  under  the  fold  of  sovereign 
law.  It  does  not  appear  to  have  been  more  abused  than 
any  later  powers  granted  to  individuals  or  States.  Its 
continuous  transformation  is  the  sign  of  its  accordance 
with  normal  human  needs.  In  Roman  society  it  yielded  to 
the  secular  claim  of  the  State,  that  the  son  who  fought  the 
nation's  battles,  and  the  wife  whose  rights,  real  and  per- 
sonal, were  too  important  to  be  confined  to  the  old  manus 
of  her  husband,  should  become  independent.  And  although 
maintained  in  China  by  a  persistent  veneration  fcr  ancestry 
and  for  male  descent,  its  severities  have  given  way  to  the 
demands  of  a  civilization  far  more  humane  and  genial  than 
that  of  Rome  at  the  period  of  the  Christian  emperors. 

1  Stob.  Flor.  I.  87.  2  Kkordah-nitah. 

8  Past  redit.  in  Senat.,  see  Floril  Lang ii,  p.  411. 

*  Rodwell's  Koran;  Sura,  xvii.  24,  25.  Comp.  Is,  xlvi.  4.  For  similar  sentiments,  see 
also  old  Greek  sages  and  comedians  (Flor.  Langii,  411  :  Gamier,  Morale  d.  /'  Antiquite),  and 
Mongol  and  Manchu  proverbs  in  Rochet. 


PATRIARCHALISM.  683 

In  a  single  passage  of  his  work  on  early  civilization, 
Maine  refers  to  the  "  patriarchal  group  "  as  bound  The  patri. 
together  by  means  of  "  power."  The  statement  archal 

family   did 

has  an  exclusive  form,  at  variance  with  the  whole  not  rest  on 
tenor  of  his  profound  and  brilliant  researches.  No  p°weronly- 
one  has  so  clearly  shown  how  permeated  this  form  of  or- 
ganization was  with  germs  of  a  very  different  nature,  and 
especially  with  the  two  agencies  of  Equity  and  Legal  Fic- 
tion, by  which  "  the  exclusive  power  of  the  family  ruler 
undergoes  slow  dissolution."  He  has  traced  the  steps  in 
Roman  law  which,  from  giving  all  the  wife's  property  to  the 
husband,  ended  by  referring  it  wholly  to  her  own  control 
except  so  far  as  settled  for  family  support ;  she  herself 
coming  completely  out  of  the  patria  potestas, —  a  process 
of  emancipation  commencing  as  early  as  the  '"  Twelve 
Tables."  1  A  similar  process  is  traced  in  Hindu  patri- 
archal law,  showing  that  as  early  as  Manu  the  wife  "  had 
more  proprietary  independence  than  is  given  her  by  the 
English  Married  Woman's  Property  Act."  2  Maine  has  even 
shown  the  change  of  the  Patriarch  into  the  Tribal  Chief, 
through  the  "  Joint  Family,"  by  means  of  "an  elective 
principle  which  counteracts  the  sole  power  of  birth."  3  In 
general  we  may,  I  think,  affirm  that  patriarchalism  in  ful- 
filling its  constructive  aspirations  abolished  its  own  des- 
potic traits.  It  has  already  been  noticed  that  the  State 
involved  duties  which  must  tend  to  equality  of  rights 
among  the  members  of  the  family  as  then  constituted. 
The  Roman  State  made  it  a  common  circumstance  for 
the  son  who  had  no  power  to  hold  a  shred  of  property 
in  his  own  right,  or  to  perform  a  single  free  act  during  his 
father's  life,  to  vote  by  the  side  of  that  father,  and  perhaps 
on  opposite  sides  on  public  questions  ;  to  command  him  in 

1  Early  Hist,  of  Instit.  Lect.  X.     See  also  La  Citt  Antique,  p.  373,  and  Hadley's  Roman 
Law,  p.  141. 

1  Maine,  p.  322.  »  Ibid.,  p.  117. 


684  BELIEFS. 

the  field,  and  even  to  punish  him  as  a  magistrate,  and  de- 
prive him  of  his  goods. 

The  house-father  was  not,  with  all  his  authority,  the  em- 
Duties  of  bodiment  of  rights  more  than  of  duties.  He  was 
the  chi-  wnat  the  depositary  of  power  in  a  great  social  or- 

nese  house-  «  ,  i  , 

father.  der  must  always  be,  so  long  as  that  order  expres- 
ses a  natural  growth,  —  the  guardian  of  the  whole.  He  was 
obliged  to  provide  for  the  family,  and  was  even  responsi- 
ble for  their  conduct.  According  to  the  Chinese  "  Sacred 
Edict,"  the  parents  are  involved  in  the  children's  sins,  and 
are  punished  for  them.  In  life  and  death  they  depend  on 
the  virtue  of  their  children  for  honor  and  support.  If  a 
father  used  his  right  to  cut  off  the  life  of  his  son,  he  in  so 
far  cut  off  himself  from  immortality,  or  became  a  wander- 
ing ghost  without  friends.  He  could  not  impoverish  his 
wife  and  child,  though  all  they  had  and  were  was  his.  He 
could  not  set  them  aside  without  offending  the  religion  of 
the  household. 

Our  chapter  on  Chinese  Government  has  shown  how 
And  of  the  tnat  crown  °f  patriarchalism,  the  imperial  office,  is 
Chinese  fenced  about  with  responsibilities ;  so  that  the 
despotic  house-father  has  become  a  ruler  whose 
right  rests  only  on  his  fitness  to  rule,  and  whom  his  mil- 
lions of  children  have  full  right  to  slay  for  his  vices  as  a 
common  ruffian.  As  these  millions  are  not  his  mere 
property,  so  the  patriarchal  family  were  not  mere  property  ; 
but  possessed  rights  which  although  in  many  respects  dor- 
mant, yet  awoke  with  the  death  of  the  house-father,  if  not 
before.  "  They  were  not  things,  but  persons."  1 

A  similar  reciprocity  was  involved  in  the  claim  of  the 
of  the  elder  brother  on  the  younger  in  this  system.  The 
eider  Sacred  Edict  says  that  if  the  younger  have  little 

her'  talent,  and  the  elder  support  him,  this  is  simply  his 
duty ;  and  if  they  quarrel,  it  is  as  if  the  right  hand  beat 
the  left. 

1  Mommsen,  Hist,  of  Rome  (Am.  Ed.)  I.  p.  93. 


PATRIARCHALISM.  685 

The  modifying  forces  now  mentioned  make  patriarchal- 
ism  difficult  of  definition,  and  forbid  us  to  believe  £ffect  rf 
that  it  was  ever  the  social  inertia  it  has  commonly  the  "Lex 
been  supposed.    In  fact  Nature  refuses  our  systems,  T 
and  the  best  use  of  her  name  is  that  old  Latin  phrase,  Lex 
Naturce,  by  which  the  Roman  lawyers  expressed  the  equity 
that  wore  away  the  older  patria  potestas  for  all  time,  by 
emancipation  of  wife,  child,  and  slave. 

The  patriarch  shared  the  defect  of  individuality  inherent 
in  all  stages  of  social  progress   but  the  highest.  The  Fam_ 
He  was  in   fact  no  individual,  but   a  constituent  iiy,  notthe 
part  of  a  whole,  whether  Family  or  State  ;  and  as  J^sThe  ' 
truly  absorbed  in  it,  as  it  in  him.     So  far  as  any  personal 
person  exists  here,  it  is  the  Family  as  a  whole.    The 
Sacred  Edict  likens  it  to  a  spring,  dividing   into  stream 
after  stream,  but  still  one  and  the  same  ;  or  to  a  tree,  split- 
ting into  branches,  but  still   ever  an   inseparable   whole. 
This,  for  the  Oriental  world,  is  the  primal  Human  Body, 
whereof  "  if  one  member  suffers,  the  rest  cannot  be  happy. 
The  nine  degrees  of  relationship,  though  counting  many 
hundreds,  are  still  but  one  person."  l 

The  subordination  of  woman  is  not  a  speciality  of  patri- 
archal society.     It  mars  every  system  of  marriage  Patriarch. 
laws  in  the  West  and  the  East.     And  it  must  be  aiism  not 
observed  that  equality  of  rights  between  the  sexes 


has  in  all  past  stages  of  progress  been  simply  ordination 
impracticable.  As  the  flower  can  be  only  the  last 
product  of  the  plant,  so  just  relations  of  the  sexes  can 
be  only  the  last  term  of  ages  of  human  culture.  Those 
peculiar  gifts,  which  have  always  more  or  less  compensated 
for  her  physical  dependence,  require  for  their  fair  manifes- 
tation a  more  refined  social  atmosphere  than  has  been 
breathed  in  any  period  of  the  past. 

1  Sacred  Edict,,pp.  55-56. 


686  BELIEFS. 

Patriarchal  religion  is  anthropomorphic  as  divinizing  the 
which  be-  masculine  only  ;  but  not  more  so  than  all  other 
1°ng8t.°  positive  religions.  The  bisexual  deities  of  many 
religions,  pantheistic  faiths,  indeed,  imply  a  divine  equality 
of  male  and  female.1  But  in  every  one  there  are  more  or 
less  prominent  signs  of  that  distinction  which  is  common 
to  all  their  marriage  laws.  The  Dyaushpitar,  Jupiter,  Zeus, 
of  the  old  Aryan  nations  does  not  more  clearly  mark  this 
rule  of  the  male  than  does  the  Pater-Noster  of  the  New 
Testament.  It  is  not  natural  for  the  Jew  or  the  Christian 
to  speak  of  his  God  as  feminine.  That  the  theistic  door  is 
now  opening  to  this  element  may  be  a  sign  of  the  advance 
of  man  towards  a  religious  universality  that  shall  require  no 
sexual  names  for  Deity  whatever.  But  because  this  has 
not  yet  arrived  for  any  of  the  great  religions,  has  therefore 
the  relation  of  the  sexes  in  these  systems  been  but  a  petty 
despotism  of  man  over  woman  ;  or  a  subordination  of  which 
he  only,  not  any  will  or  need  of  hers,  has  been  the  creator  ? 
It  were,  indeed,  a  sad  outlook  on  human  nature,  if  a  civiliza- 
tion like  that  of  China  could  illustrate  the  persistence  of 
such  despotism.  History  is  the  prescience,  as  well  as  the 
experience,  of  man  :  and  its  threads  of  unconscious  ten- 
dency grow  clearer  to  the  student  with  the  brightness  of  the 
day  by  whose  resultant  light  he  reads,  or  shall  read,  their 
prophecy. 

Though  the  Chinese  have  always  maintained  the  patri- 
archal  theory  ;  though  the  triple  dependence  of 
woman  on  husband,  father,  son,  is  a  social  axiom  ; 

.  ....  r     •     r  v 

Chinese  though  a  different  treatment  of  infants,  according 
manners.  to  se^  is  noted  in  tfe  oldest  poetry  ;  though  the 
law  gives  control  of  the  daughter's  marriage  to  the  parent, 
and  makes  her  subject  to  her  step-parents  from  the  wed- 
ding day  forth  ;  though  females  are  kept  behind  a  screen 
at  banquets  and  theatres,  and  withdrawn  from  public  gaze, 

1  See  Oriental  Religions,  India,  p.  226. 


to 

woman  in 


PATRIARCHALISM.  68/ 

as  much  as  they  are  from  politics  in  Western  life  ;  though, 
as  representing  the  Yin  principle,  they  cannot  properly 
govern  the  State,  —  nevertheless  manners,  here  as  else- 
where, outrun  laws,  and  assign  to  woman  a  much  higher 
position  than  is  here  implied.  Her  position  is  not  that  of 
a  slave,  nor  of  social  disrespect,  but  of  recognized  dignity 
and  power.1  She  shares  the  honors  of  the  family  as  a 
whole;  and  her  subordinations  therein  are  but  part  of  a 
system  of  similar  subjections  from  which  no  member  is 
free :  the  younger  brother  being  equally  in  the  hands  of 
the  elder  ;  the  elder  of  the  father  ;  the  father  of  his  father, 
who  is  under  ancestral  authority.  A  submission  which  all 
alike  in  their  several  ways  accept  is,  of  course,  not  a  mark 
of  tyranny,  but  of  religious  unity  :  a  bond  of  equality  and 
mutual  regard. 

From  the  earliest  times,  literature  shows  the  sexes  freely 
forming  attachments,  notwithstanding  the  rule  so  familiar 
to  our  impressions  of  Oriental  life  that  the  parents  alone 
shall  determine  them,  and  that  the  daughter  shall  not  have 
sight  of  her  future  husband.2  "  Like  music  of  lutes,"  says 
the  Shi-king,  "  is  the  love  of  wife  and  child."  3  "A  woman 
becoming  a  mother,  from  a  menial  becomes  almost  a  god- 
dess." 4  No  divorce  is  allowed  without  law,  and  wise  pro- 
visions guard  the  situation  of  the  divorced.  No  people 
exhibit  more  domestic  affection.5  In  public  processions 
women  are  conspicuous.  Midwifery  is  almost  wholly  in 
their  hands.  Literature,  as  we  have  seen,  abounds  in  names 
and  honors  of  women,  and  among  the  masses  there  is 
scarcely  any  function  which  they  do  not  perform.  Their 
theoretic  exclusion  from  the  throne  has  not  prevented  a 
larger  share  of  political  influence  being  exercised  by  them 

J  See  Speer,  p.  632;  Wuttke,  II.  134;  De  Rosny,  Stances  dcs  Orient.  1873,  p.  153  ;  Wil- 
liams, II.  61,  62. 

2  See  Shi-king,  I.  i.  6;  II.  9,  ii.  12.     St.  Denys's  Poes.  d.  Tang,  p.  19.     De  Mas,  I.  51. 

3  Shi-king,  II.  i.  4-     See  also  Shi-king,  I.  vii.  19  ;  x.  5.  «  Williams,  II.  63. 
8  Chin.  Repos.  March,  1843. 


688  BELIEFS. 

than  by  women  elsewhere,  even  to  the  actual  administra- 
tion of  the  State  ;  from  the  bad  queens  who  ruined  dynas- 
ties in  the  oldest  time  down  to  the  reformatory  regents  of 
the  present  time. 

The  custom  of  crippling  the  feet  is  symbolic  of  the  self- 
crippiing  stunting  race,  and  seems  the  very  badge  of  slavery  ; 
the  feet.  yet  ft  £QQS  not  seem  to  have  been  imposed  by  the 

male,  nor  to  have  existed  in  early  times  ;  the  equal  admira- 
tion of  both  sexes  for  the  "  golden  lilies  "  being  obviously  a 
result  of  the  national  taste  for  mixtures  of  finicality  and 
repression.  The  best  authorities  agree  that  it  is  not  more 
detrimental  to  health  than  many  fashions  even  more  preva- 
lent in  Western  countries  than  this  in  China.1  Very  few 
native  women  have  brought  ailments  from  this  cause  into 
the  European  hospitals  in  the  ports.2  A  people  fond  of 
dancing,  and  whose  laboring  women  work  freely  in  the  fields 
and  walk  for  long  distances  under  burdens,  cannot  as  a 
whole  have  been  very  greatly  harmed  by  the  practice.3  To 
offset  it,  we  may  note  that  Chinese  women  wear  no  stays, 
are  neither  bedizened  nor  deformed  by  fashion,  and  escape 
the  male  vice  of  long  nails.  They  have  even  been  described 
as  remarkable  for  dignity  in  gait  and  bearing,4  which  is,  of 
course,  incompatible  with  so  very  wide  a  prevalence  of  the 
custom  as  is  generally  imagined. 

Though  not  strictly  monogamic,  the  Chinese  family  is 
substantially  so  ;  since  the  law  recognizes  but  one 


true  wife,5  and  the  subordinate  position  of  the  con- 
"poiyg-  cubine  is  the  sign  that  she  is  tolerated  on  the 

ground  of  that  necessity  of  offspring  which  is  the 
permanent  social  and  religious  bond.  Only  the  rich  can 
afford  a  harem,  the  discredit  of  which  is  moreover  in  the 

1  Lockhart's  Med.  Missionary,  p.  337. 
1  Chin.  Repos.  August,  1841  ;  Lay,  ch.  ii. 

3  See  Welcker,  Arch,  fur  Anthropol.  March,  1872.    Fleming's  Travels,  p.  161.    De  Mas, 
69,  71.     Dutch  Relat.  Vol.  II.     Lockhart,  p.  337. 

4  Courcy,  207.  6  Davis's  Chinese,  I.  p.  262. 


PATRIARCHALISM.  689 

ratio  of  its  -extent.1  For  chastity,  as  recognized  and  defined 
by  ancient  usage,  there  is  the  same  respect  as  elsewhere  ; 
nor  in  general  is  the  sentiment  of  love  less  concentrated 
upon  its  object,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  literature,  and 
from  the  tender  sympathies  between  parents  and  children 
in  Chinese  homes,  than  in  other  civilized  races.2  The  poly- 
gamic  marriage,  however  contrary  to  our  civilization,  has 
its  sanctities  in  the  East,  perhaps  as  much  observed  as 
those  of  the  Christian  bridal  chamber.  Its  guarantees 
against  lawless  passion  have  certainly  had  much  efficacy 
in  the  past  ;  how  far  they  still  operate  in  Chinese  society 
we  shall  probably  ere  long  know  better  than  we  now 
do.  The  real  key  to  the  question  between  these  forms 
of  marriage  lies  in  the  fact,  that  the  demand  of  mankind 
for  monogamic  relations  corresponds  with  its  progress  in 
respect  for  the  individual  as  such  :  it  is  part  of  the  sense 
of  personality  as  an  independent  and  immeasurable  value. 
Not  in  the  most  civilized  races  is  this  yet  perfected  ;  it  is 
even  possible  that  the  gap  between  the  ideal  and  the  act- 
ual in  the  marriage  relation  is  relatively  as  great  in  the 
higher  monogamic  as  in  the  lower  patriarchal  world.  The 
Penal  Code  of  China,  as  we  have  seen,  severely  punishes 
breach  of  promise,  degradation  of  the  wife  to  a  concubine, 
or  giving  her  rights  to  another. 

In  Japan,  "  woman  is  not  the  slave,  but  the  companion 
of  man,"  3  free  at  once  of  seclusion  and  of  outdoor  servi- 
tude, and  sharing  in  all  his  social  interests  and  avocations. 
Women  as  freely  engage  in  farming  and  in  trade  as  men  ; 
their  percentage  of  immorality,  as  compared  with  woman  in 
males,  is  less  than  elsewhere  ;  and  the  respect  for  JaPan- 
domestic  virtues  is  signalized  by  the  fact  that  the  chief  deity 
of  the  old  popular  faith,  representing  the  sun,  is  a  female  ; 

1  Davis's  Chinese,  I.  p.  263. 

1  Lay,  in  Chin  Repos.,  March,  1843  ;  Speer,  p.  632  ;  Medhurst,  Foreigner  in  Far  Cathay^ 
p.  115  ;   Marriage  Odes  of  the  Shi-king;  Yang-Ching  in  "  Sacred  Edict,1'  on  maxims  i.  xi. 
*  A  merican  Expedition,  I.  397. 

44 


690  BELIEFS. 

while  the  most  beloved  and  honored  of  the  whole  Japanese 
Pantheon  is  the  merciful  Queen  of  Heaven,  —  correspond- 
ing to  the  Chinese  Kwan-yin  and  the  Christian  Madonna.1 
"  Japan,"  says  De  Rosny,  "  has  established  the  rights  of 
women,  even  instituting  monogamy  by  law,  and  providing 
books  of  instruction  in  the  relations  of  wife  and  mother  not 
inferior  to  any  thing  of  this  kind  in  the  West."  2 

Patriarchalism,  then',  was  a  normal  step  in  human  prog- 
Root  of  ress.  Whatever  part  was  played  in  its  production 
patriarch-  by  the  growth  of  masculine  authority,  or  by  reaction 
natural  on  the  earlier  rule  of  descent  by  the  female  line,  it 
sentiments.  resj-s  on  a  far  deeper  ground  of  sentiment  and  preg- 
nant germ  of  social  good.  And  this  ground  can  be  no  other 
than  natural  piety,  of  which  filial  and  parental  love  are  the 
poles,  and  reverence  for  age  the  typical  form.  This  the 
"  Sacred  Edict  "  describes  as  founded  on  unchanging  laws 
and  universal  obligations  ;  as  proceeding  in  man  from  grati- 
tude, and  as  the  basis  of  every  virtue.3  The  Li-ki  declares 
reverence  for  age  to  be  as  ancient  as  conscience  itself. 
Herodotus  noticed  that  the  Egyptians,  themselves  oldest  of 
peoples,  always  made  way  for  the  old  and  rose  at  their  ap- 
proach. In  Oriental  faith  this  sentiment  is  evidently  held 
Their -reat  to  ^e  tne  prime  safeguard  of  the  State.  When  the 
develop-  Hebrew  said,  "  Honor  thy  father  and  mother,  that 
East  ^ Re!  ^Y  days  mav  be  long  in  the  land,"  it  was  not  a 
spectfor  mere  illusion  of  longevity  as  an  individual  reward, 
but  a  belief  that  this  was  the  law  of  national  pres- 
ervation ;  and,  as  Michaelis  has  noted,  it  is  addressed  in  a 
special  manner  to  the  people  as  a  whole.4  Over  all  the 
East,  in  the  village  communities  of  India  and  China,  in 
the  African  towns,  as  in  Judea,  Egypt,  Rome,  in  Homer, 
the  Bible,  the  Koran,  the  Shi,  and  the  Shu,  the  elders  sit 
in  the  gates,  —  judges,  peacemakers,  fathers  of  the  people. 

1  Smith's  Ten  Weeks  in  Japan  ;  Jarves's  Sketches  ;  Emile  Eurnouf,  My  thai,  des  Japanois. 
'*  Congres  Intern,  d.  Orient,  1873.  8  Milne,  30,  38. 

«  See  Saalschutz,  Mas.  Recht.  II.  587. 


PATRIARCHALTSM.  69! 

The  Arab  sheikhs,  the  English  alderman,  the  Hebrew 
zekenim,  the  Greek  gerousia,  the  Latin  senatus,  the  seign- 
iors and  sirs  of  later  times,  —  all  attest  the  homage  of  hu- 
manity to  its  fathers.  It  is  the  heart  of  the  highest  faiths 
and  of  the  earliest  social  forms.  So  unselfish  a  sentiment  is 
inseparable  from  personal  reverence.  "  Never  hurry  before 
one  older  than  yourself,"  says  Mencius.  "  When  a  son  re- 
ceives the  words  of  his  father,"  said  Egyptian  ethics  five 
thousand  years  ago,  "  his  life  shall  be  long  in  the  land."  It 
is  only  among  the  athletic  and  unsentimental  Greeks  that 
old  age  is  sometimes  treated  with  contempt.  Yet  the  filial 
feeling  is  strong  in  the  best  of  these.  "  Respect  gray  hairs," 
says  Phocylides  ;  "  give  place  to  old  age,  and  dispute  not 
its  fitting  honors."  "  Love  thy  parent  if  he  is  just ;  if  un- 
just, endure  it,"  says  Publius  Syrus.  "  Monstrous  and  wor- 
thy of  death  it  was  held  in  better  days  for  a  young  person 
not  to  rise  before  the  old,"  echoes  Roman  Juvenal.  "  The 
honor  of  old  age,"  says  Plutarch,  in  his  noble  essay  on  the 
"  Right  of  the  Aged  to  Public  Life,"  "  is  free  from  the 
jealousy  that  usually  attaches  to  virtue,  and  is  willingly 
granted  by  men  to  their  companions.  No  honor  graces  the 
honorer  beyond  the  honored,  as  that  which  is  given  to  those 
of  advanced  years.  There  is  a  world  of  refinement  and 
delicacy  in  the  saying  of  Epaminondas,  that  the  pleasantest 
thing  that  ever  befel  him  was  gaining  the  victory  at  Leuctra 
while  his  father  and  mother  were  still  living."  "  No  lifeless 
statue,"  says  Plato  in  the  Laws,  "  can  compare  with  the 
figure  of  a  living  father,  or  grandfather,  or  mother  stricken 
in  years  ;  whom  when  a  man  honors,  the  heart  of  the  God 
rejoices,  and  he  is  ready  to  answer  their  prayers." 

But  it  is  in  China  that  this  sentiment  has  made  its  deep- 
est mark  on  manners  and  life.     It  is  a  part  of  that  Amongthe 
reverence  for  antiquity  which   causes  every  thing  Chinese. 
to  savor  of  age  in  a  country  where  the  records  of  literary 
triumphs  hang  on  the  walls  till  they  are  indecipherable. 


6Q2  BELIEFS. 

"How  old  are  you  ?  "  is  the  common  greeting.;1  not,  "how 
do  you  carry  yourself?"  or,  "how  do  you  do?"  or,  "how 
are  you  ?  "  by  which  French,  English,  and  Americans  re- 
spectively betray  their  national  traits.  Descriptions  of  the 
country  life  of  Northern  China  speak  of  the  infirm  and  old 
as  treated  with  constant  deference  ;  of  the  village  patriarchs 
sitting  around  the  wells  and  under  the  ancient  trees  among 
their  children  and  grandchildren.2  Confucius  and  Mencius, 
in  recounting  their  personal  experience,  recognize  the  epochs 
of  life  as  successively  higher  stages  of  attainment.  The 
laws  make  provision  for  the  support  of  the  old,  spare  the 
life  of  the  criminal  if  his  parents  need  his  care,  and  treat 
him,  if  aged,  with  special  forbearance.3  Neglect  of  the  tomb 
of  one's  parents  is  a  penal  offence.4  In  every  religion  of 
China  the  basis  of  authority  is  paternal.  What  the  Con- 
fucians have  vested  in  their  Emperor,  the  Buddhists  en- 
throne in  their  Lama,  and  the  Taoists  in  their  patriarchal 
prince.  Festive  honors  to  the  old  are  a  national  rite,  per- 
formed by  the  ruler  in  recognition  of  their  guardianship  of 
the  State  ;  they  are  served  by  princes  and  presented  with 
symbolic  gifts,  as  a  power  behind  the  throne.5  From  old 
times  the  treasury  had  its  distributing  department  for  the 
benefit  of  the  aged  and  infirm.6  The  gratitude  of  the  State 
to  its  old  and  deserving  functionaries  is  historical.7  The 
number  of  old  men  in  official  posts  is  very  large  ;  so  that 
censors  have  of  late  remonstrated  against  a  custom  which 
tended  to  lower  the  energy  of  the  civil  service. 

In  concluding  our  review  of  the  idea  which  lies  at  the 
Errors  basis  of  Chinese  religion,  it  is  important  to  notice 
concerning  one  r  ^  errors  of  wide  currency  concerning  it. 

patriarch-  *• 

aiismin          We  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  "the  patriarchal 
theory  does  not  make  men  truthful,  honorable,  kind  ; 

1  Fortune,  Wanderings,  p.  367.  2  Fleming,  Travels,  &c.,  pp.  114,  205. 

8  Penal  Code,  LXXXI. ;  LXXXIX. ;  XVIII. 

4  Davis,  I.  223.  fi  See  for  these  festivals,  Chin.  Rcpos.,  September,  1840. 

6  Gingell's  Chow  Institutes  (1852),  p.  104.  7  Ibid. 


PATRIARCHALISM.  693 

does  not  place  woman  in  her  rightful  position,  nor  teach  all 
classes  their  obligation  to  their  Maker."  l  No  recognized 
theory  of  social  life  does  all  these  things,  however  vaunted 
by  its  upholders.  Nor  can  we  ascribe  the  permanence  of 
the  Chinese  State  under  these' defects  to  such  merely  ex- 
ternal arrangements  as  strict  police,  mutual  responsibility, 
isolation,  fear.2  We  have  seen  that  the  Family  system  con- 
tains in  its  domestic  and  public  forms  a  great  many  naturally 
conservative  elements  and  humane  guarantees. 

But,  as  we  have  further  seen,  the  "  patriarchal  theory  " 
does  not  properly  exist  in  China ;  or  rather,  it  is  Not  a 
found  only  in  minds  preoccupied  with  Shemitic  tra-  ^Sza-* 
ditions.  China  is  a  development  of  the  patriarchal  tion- 
household  into  a  civilization  endowed  with  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  social  good.  The  inference  is  that  we  have  here 
no  mere  theory  about  fathers,  wives,  and  sons,  but  a  com- 
plex of  human  forces,  out  of  which  flow  the  humanities  and 
also  the  defects  of  the  civilizations  in  question.  The  Family 
in  Chinese  history  has  proved  itself  a  force  of  evolution  into 
national  systems  of  schools,  rites,  poor-laws,  joint  labor,  lo- 
cal self-government,  and  mutual  aid.  We  see  in  the  Sacred 
Edict  '6  that  it  is  expanded  so  as  to  cover  all  public  duties. 
Here  is  at  least  a  permanent  root  of  social  continuity  ;  nor 
does  it  run  to  rankness  more  than  the  opposite  force  of  ir- 
responsibility in  Occidental  works  and  ways.  At  the  end  of 
our  sweep  of  self-loosed  and  headlong  passions  around  the 
globe,  half  the  human  race  stands  before  us  to  bar  such 
mastership  with  its  anchorage  in  sentiments  of  continuity, 
of  reverence  for  past  achievement,  and  for  eternal  rules  of 
Nature  as  guardians  of  men  and  States.  Our  free  energy 
will  stir  the  inertia  of  the  East  to  new  hopes  and  aims. 
But  to  ignore  the  reciprocal  gain  which  is  so  obvious  would 
be  the  sign  of  a  hopeless  self-complacency. 

1  Williams' s  Middle  Kingdom,  I.  297.  2  Ibid.,  p.  298. 

8  The  quotations  from  this  truly  typical  classic,  in  the  valuable  work  of  Williams,  are  un- 
important, and  give  no  idea  of  its  real  spirit. 


6Q4  BELIEFS. 

In  calling  Chinese  religion  a  development  of  "  filial 
Not  a  piety,"  we  are  far  from  meaning  that  it  is  merely 
"worship  tne  worsnip  of  human  ancestors.  The  religious 

of  human 

person-  sentiment  never  worships  an  external-  object  as 
such,  but  an  inward  idea  however  embodied.  The 
idea  extends  beyond  the  special  object,  and  is  always  to  an 
extent  impersonal ;  yet  in  no  positive  religion  is  it  wholly 
so.  Whether  this  limitation  by  a  special  object  is  more 
avoided  by  Hebrew  and  Christian  anthropomorphism,  or  by 
Chinese  "  ancestral  worship,"  is  .a  question  of  degree,  but 
Nota  hardly  of  essential  difference.  When  Dr.  Edkins 
"deaden-  tells  us  that  filial  piety  in  China,  as  directed  towards 
the  con-  men,  "  has  caused  the  national  conscience  to  be- 
science."  come  comparatively  insensible  to  sin  as  committed 
against  the  Supreme  Ruler  of  the  world," 1  we  are  prompted 
to  inquire  whether  the  said  national  conscience  is  likely  to 
be  improved  by  contact  with  the  conscience  of  the  Western 
nations  more  than  by  adherence  to  the  rules  of  filial  piety  ? 
But  we  observe  further  that  "  sin,"  as  here  suggested,  does 
not  at  all  mean  violation  of  essential  moral  principle,  but 
intentional,  or  inherited,  offence  to  some  individual  Gov- 
Theoiogi-  ernor  who  has  imposed  on  man  a  body  of  ethical 
cai  patri-  rules.  Of  such  a  Governor  the  Chinese  have  indeed 

archalism  .  . 

of  the  hardly  a  conception.  And  the  inquiry  is  pertinent, 
whether  the  domestic  or  political  patriarch  of  the 
Chinaman  is  more  likely  to  overshadow  the  moral  sense 
than  the  theological  Patriarch  of  the  Western  missionary, 
jealous  of  every  duty  paid  to  parents  out  of  the  line  of  his 
own  edicts  ?  Morality  is  the  more  substantial,  the  more  in- 
dependent it  is  of  superhuman  volitions,  and  the  more  fully 
rested  on  the  nature  of  things  and  the  authority  of  truth. 
No  "  Supreme  Ruler  "  could  supersede  Nature,  in  this  large 
sense ;  nor  claim  the  right  to  be  offended  by  human  thoughts 
or  deeds,  as  if  he  were  an  interest  outside  and  beyond  the 

1  Religion  in  China,  p.  177. 


THE    ANCESTRAL  SHRINE.  695 

sanctions  of  these  essential  laws.  And  while  we  are  not 
disposed  to  put  in  for  the  Chinese  conscience  any  excessive 
claim  for  actual  morality,  we  must  remark,  as  very  favorable 
to  its  sense  of  right,  the  fact  that  this  sense  stands  on  its 
own  merits,  and  wholly  free  from  the  theological  dogma 
of  "  sin." 

The  simplicity  of  the  old  Shintoo  creed  of  Japan  corres- 
ponds very  closely  to  Chinese  primitive  worship  as 
we  find  it  in  the  ancient  books.  The  preservation 
of  fire  in  the  dwelling  as  family  guardian,  belief  in  Religion, 
purity  of  heart  and  abstinence  from  things  evil,  absence  of 
idolatry  and  festivals  for  rites,  belong  to  the  same  tradition 
of  simple  ways ;  to  which  we  must  add  the  veneration  of 
ancestors  and  divinely  helpful  men.1 


THE   ANCESTRAL   SHRINE. 

THE  Family  would  not  be  competent  to  create  a  civiliza- 
tion if  it  could  not  conquer  the  dissolving  power  of  Power  o£ 
death.     It  is  at  the  tomb  or  the  ancestral  tablet,  fii;ai  piety 
where  its  relations  live  oh,  invisibly  but  unchanged, 


that  the  early  forms  of  filial  piety  become  a  reli-  <leath- 
gious  rite.  Significantly  enough  this  natural  sentiment 
which  directs  man  in  the  beginning  of  his  growth,  and  pro- 
tects him  in  its  maturity  from  the  very  outset,  ignores 
utterly  the  idea  of  death.  So  strong  is  the  sense  of  life, 
even  in  those  primitive  ways  of  dealing  with  the  forces  of 
Nature  to  which  we  give  the  name  of  Fetichism,  that  science 
has  embraced  the  whole  class  of  conceptions  under  the  term 
'Animism. 

It  is  now  agreed  to  define  Fetichism  as  belief  in  the 
possession  of  special  inanimate  objects  by  invisible 


agents,  more  or  less  dependent  on  the  interest  and  **.a  ™or~ 
care  of  the  believer.     The  tomb  in  the  old  Aryan  life. 

1  See  Kampffer;  Smith's  Ten  Weeks  in  Japan;  Jarves's  Sketches. 


696  BELIEFS. 

races,  the  coffin  and  mummy  in  Egypt,  and  the  tablet  and 
coffin  in  China,  as  well  as  the  ark  of  the  Hebrews  and  the 
caaba  of  the  Arabs,  would  thus  come  fairly  within  the 
class  of  fetiches,  —  which  survives  in  the  miraculous  relics 
and  thousand  similar  superstitions  of  more  modern  times 
and  faiths. 

But  it  is  evident  that  fetichism  in  this  sense  depends  on 
a  sense  of  personal  life  as  everywhere  present,  and  suscep- 
tible only  of  changes  in  form  and  place.  Every  object  in 
Nature  may  enfold  a  soul,  and  so  protest  against  any  power 
in  death  to  touch  the  cherished  ties  of  life.  Fetichism 
thus  passes  on  into  transmigration,  and  thence  into  the 
poetry  of  polytheism,  which  fills  the  beauty  and  terror  of 
natural  scenery,  as  well  as  of  living  organisms,  with  a  fa- 
miliar humanity.  The  Christian  believer  has  not  forgotten 
this  impulse  of  half-civilized  races  to  transmute  the  tomb 
or  the  totem  into  a  world  of  personal  powers,  when  he  sees 
his  priest  produce  the  mystery  of  transubstantiation  in 
bread  and  wine,  or  associates  the  presence  of  Jesus  Christ 
with  the  confession  of  his  name.  That  he  does  not  throw 
aside  his  fetich  when  it  fails  to  answers  his  prayers,  is  a 
distinction  from  the  earlier  and  cruder  form  ;  but  he  cer- 
tainly retains  a  strong  feeling  of  the  dependence  of  the 
person  worshipped  on  this  human  care  of  the  object  in 
which  he  is  supposed  to  abide. 

Ancestral  fetichism  may  be  far  from  conclusive  evidence 
Relation  °^  immortality  to  the  thoughtful  inquirer.  Yet  it 
ofances-  affirms  continuity  for  the  family  life  beyond  death. 
It  asserts  permanence  at  the  very  root  of  man's 
conscious  relations  with  the  universe.  And  this  is, 


if  nothing  else,  a  presumption  in  favor  of  his  nat- 
ural superiority  to  death.  But  our  main  object  is  to  mark 
the  elevating  influence  of  which  it  is  found  capable,  the 
function  which  it  filled  in  the  older  civilizations. 

Ancestral  service  carried  the  home  into  unseen  spheres, 


THE  ANCESTRAL  SHRINE.  697 

associating  its  image  with  the  object  believed  to  be  in- 
spired by  the  departed.  When  one  dies,  the  Chinese  say 
he  has  "  returned  to  his  family."  All  ancient  nations  have 
turned  the  grave  into  a  dwelling-place,  and  all  religions 
have  their  well-known  analogues  to  the  domestic  tributes 
there  deposited.1  The  practical  force  of  these  continuities 
is  illustrated  by  the  wide-spread  custom  of  placing  milk 
and  honey  on  graves,  and  in  general  of  feeding  the  dead  ; 
the  prevalence  of  which  in  so  enlightened  a  people  as  the 
Greek  proves  it  to  have  more  connection  with  the  persis- 
tence of  domestic  cares  and  interests  than  with  the  bald 
superstition  that  spirits  devour  the  visible  food.  From  the 
terrors  of  the  Guinea  negro,  who  moves  his  dwelling  for 
fear  of  ghosts,  to  the  splendid  athletic  rites  at  the  grave  of 
the  Homeric  Patroclus,  the  quality  of  the  household  and 
the  relative  predominance  therein  of  fears,  or  loves,  or 
proud  traditions  determined  the  character  of  these  se- 
pulchral honors,  and  made  the  ghost  a  dark  incubus  or  a 
noble  joy. 

Here  perhaps  we  touch  the  earliest  sign  of  the  creative 
power  of  imagination  to  transmute  visible  objects  Theinvisi. 
into  an  ideal  world  totally  unlike  themselves.  How  We  home- 
intensely  real  this  invisible  homestead  could  be- 
come, we  may  see  in  such  stories  as  Plutarch's  of  the 
Messenian  King,  who  slew  himself  in  despair  because  he 
heard  dogs  howling  about  his  ancestral  altar,  and  saw  grass 
growing  around  it;2  or  that  of  the  Ming  Emperor  of 
China,  who  having  lost  his  parents  when  young,  and  be- 
ing ignorant  what  had  become  of  their  bodies,  decreed  on 
his  accession  that  the  whole  people  should  sacrifice  three 
times  a  year  to  the  shades  of  those  whose  graves  were 

1  Roma  Sotterranea,  by  Kraus  (Freiburg,  1873),  p.  439 ;  Taylor's  Jttruscan  Researches, 
ch.  ix.  ;   La  Cite  Antique,  ch.   i. ;  Mommsen's  Rome,   i.   226;  Oriental  Religions  (India, 
Rig  Veda  Hymns);  Martha's   Poeme  de  Lucrece,  p.    136;    Polytheisms   Hcllenique   par 
Menard  (Paris,  1833);  Tylor's  Prim.  Culture,  Vol.  II. 

2  Plutarch  on  Superstition. 


698  BELIEFS. 

neglected.1  The  unburied  was  a  homeless  wanderer  ;  and 
the  fear  of  death  was  resolved  into  the  horror  of  lying 
exposed,  without  that  earth-covering  which  indicated  ties 
with  the  living,  to  wild  beasts  that  knew  no  filial  care. 
With  what  earnestness  the  Egyptian  followed  these  dear 
continuities  over  the  last  verge  of  the  mystery  of  dissolu- 
tion, embalming  the  body  amidst  all  the  familiar  surround- 
ings of  life  in  his  populous  tombs ! 2  So  the  Chinese 
hoards  the  predestined  coffin  of  his  father  as  a  household 
shrine,  and  bestows  it  on  him  during  life  as  the  best  of 
gifts.  To  the  Egyptian,  the  body  left  to  itself  and  to 
decay  seemed  an  open  door  to  transmigration  ;  to  the  Chi- 
nese, it  was  a  hold  lost  on  the  concrete  facts  of  life. 

But  the  patriarchal  household  had  more  to  give  the  dead 
itsreii-  tnan  domestic  affections.  These  have  themselves 
gious  a  religious  root,  and  prove  the  instinctive  devotion 
of  man  to  those  unwritten  laws  of  his  nature  which 
the  heart  of  Antigone  placed  above  all  statutes,  and  which 
bade  her  bury  her  brother's  corpse,  though  the  penalty  was 
to  go  down  alive  with  him  into  the  tomb.  The  grave  was 
not  a  secular  dwelling  only,  but  the  enduring  shrine  of  a 
religion  in  which  the  fathers  sat  as  gods.  However  crude 
in  its  beginnings,  Hesiod  could  say  of  this  religion  that 
"  the  men  of  the  age  of  gold  became  divinities  (daimones) 
after  death  ;  protectors  of  the  living,  guardians  of  the 
moral  laws." 3  "  How,  think  you,"  says  the  dying  Cyrus 
of  Xenophon,  "  should  honors  continue  to  be  paid  the 
dead,  if  their  souls  were  destitute  of  power  and  virtue  ? "  4 
It  is  no  fancy  to  recognize  here  a  transition  to  the  parting 
words  of  Socrates  to  his  weeping  followers :  "  My  friends, 
it  is  not  me  you  bury,  but  my  body  only."  Such  the 

1  A  ceremony  still  observed  under  the  title  of  "  Pity  for   the  Unfortunate."      Nevius, 
p.  140. 

2  For  a  description  of  the  ancestral  cult  of  the  Egyptians  at  their  tombs,  strikingly  sugges- 
tive of  the  Chinese,  see  Maspero,  Hist.  Ancienne  de  V  Orient  (1875),  pp.  62-65. 

8  Works  and  Days,  verses  123,  124.  4  Cyrof.  VIII.  7. 


THE   ANCESTRAL   SHRINE.  699 

evolution  of  a  human  faith,  beginning  in  the  awe   of  the 
fetichist  before  his  ancestral  tomb. 

The  Turanians  as  a  whole,  —  if  the  phrase  be  now  allowed 
as  defining  a  family  to  which  not  only  the  Chinese  Turanian 
Mongols,  but  the  Finns,  perhaps  the  old  Etruscans  tomb-build- 
and  the  Dravidian  tribes  of  India,  belong,  —  have  ers> 
been  recently  called,  by  a  bold  generalization,  the  "  Race  of 
the  Tomb-builders."  They  have  made  the  tomb  a  home,  a 
treasury,  a  palace  even,  for  the  spirit ;  and  the  same  writer 
permits  himself  to  ascribe  to  them  the  discovery  (!)  of  the 
idea  of  immortality.  They  certainly  share  with  the  Egyptians 
the  elaboration  of  a  sepulchral  life,  from  the  infinite  detail 
of  furniture  and  mural  art  of  Clusium  and  Volci  to  the  co- 
lossal avenues  of  the  Ming  tombs.  Another  branch  of  the 
same  sentiment  consecrated  the  dwellings  of  the  living  to 
the  domestic  divinity  of  the  dead, —  to  the  Lares,  Manes, 
Lemures  of  the  Aryan  Greeks  and  Romans,  the  Hebrew 
teraphim,  and  the  Chinese  "  kitchen  god." 

But  none  of  these  races  compare  with  the  old  Egyptian 
in  concentration  on  life  in  the  tomb :  a  faith  so  intensely 
in  earnest  that  it  made  hewing  out  vast  catacombs  the 
business  of  human  existence  ;  loaded  them  with  paint- 
ings and  sculptures  immeasurable  ;  then  left  them  in  the 
darkness,  sealed  up  from  human  sight  for  ever,  and  secured 
against  the  very  approach  of  living  feet.  Nothing  like 
this  for  absorbing  realization,  nothing  for  age  or  scale  of 
production,  has  been  shown  by  the  "  Turanic  "  races. 

So  domestic  is  the  religion  of  the  Chinese  that  their  an- 
cestral rites  are  simply  an  extension  of  their  home  Domestic 
associations  ;  and  this  is  so  completely  effected  chinelllt 
that  the  grave  has  lost  its  terror  and  the  tomb  is  the  grave, 
dedicated  to  joy.  With  every  opening  year,  soft  budding 
willow  boughs  are  strewn  >by  millions  of  hands  on  the  cher- 
ished sod.  The  superstitious  believe  that  departed  friends 
are  protected  from  assaults  of  evil  spirits  by  propitiatory 


/OO  BELIEFS. 

gifts.1  In  numbers  these  homes  of  the  dead  far  surpass 
those  of  the  living.  They  are  the  monumental  architecture 
of  a  people  whose  delight  in  perpetuating  the  relations  of 
this  life  has  absorbed  the  very  earth  on  which  they  tread  ; 
and  the  land  may  almost  be  called  a  necropolis,  decked  with 
natural  flowers  and  shaded  with  familiar  trees.2 

But  the  symbolic  Tablet  brings  closer  intimacy  with 
Family  re-  the  unseen  than  the  grave.  The  ancestral  temple 
tTeTncJ"  *s  tne  centre  of  family  reunion,  without  distinction 
trai  temple.  of  rank  or  wealth.  Before  its  plain  tablets  of  wood 
the  cheerful  tribes  hold  their  domestic  jubilees,  sources  of 
as  pure  and  happy  associations  to  young  and  old  as  the 
national  life  affords.  Here  are  none  of  those  fanatical 
rites  which  have  so  often  defaced  the  service  of  the  dead  ; 
every  thing  is  as  orderly  as  the  household  itself,  and  as 
promotive  of  kindly  feeling.  Here  "  worship,"  if  we  call 
it  so,  consecrates  at  least  the  happiness  of  homes,  the 
purity  of  marriages,  the  traditions  of  duty  and  love. 

From  oldest  times,  the  Ancestral  Shrine  has  held  the 
its  impor-  first  place  in  Chinese  affection.  The  first  step  in 
cTtoe'  erecting  princedoms,  palaces,  or  mansions  was  to 
history  lay  its  foundations,  and  to  dedicate  it  with  rites  of 
ThVsh'i-  °ld  n°madic  origin.  The  Shi-king  describes  the 
kins-  music  and  dances  and  pleasant  viands  in  these 
"  dwellings  of  the  Expected  Ones  "  3  three  thousand  years 
ago  ;  the  sense  of  invisible  presence  and  participation  ; 
the  blessings  invoked  and  received  ;  the  songs  celebrating 
the  first  husbandmen  and  openers  up  of  the  fruitful  lands  ; 
the  little  child  personating  a  chief  ancestor  to  receive 
gifts  and  honors,  and  the  listening  even  to 'his  prattle 
as  a  mystic  wisdom.4  No  grief  was  suffered  to  intrude  ; 
nor  could  these  rites  be  held  during  periods  of  mourning. 

1  De  Mas,  p.  257:  Doolittle,  II.  pp.  49,  50.  2  Fortune,  p.  333. 

8  Tswig-miao  is  the  Chinese  term.     See  Plath,  p.  885. 

4  Shi-king;  II.  vi.  6;  III.  ii.  3;  Shu-king,  II.  4,  9.  Since  Chi-hwang-ti,  the  tablet 
has  supplanted  these  primitive  symbols. 


THE   ANCESTRAL    SHRINE.  7<DI 

"  The  ancestral  offering  comes  not  again  till  the  return 
of  joy  to  the  home."  The  son  makes  his  offering  with 
mind  fixed  on  the  parents  as  still  present :  "  sad  in  winter 
to  think  they  are  like  the  falling  leaf,  yet  joyful  in  spring 
to  think  he  shall  soon  see  them  again."1  The. candle 
lighted  at  the  bedside  of  the  dead,  and  the  paper-money 
and  clothes  burned  for  his  service,  have  been  supposed  to 
prove  that  the  departed  are  conceived  as  ghosts  groping 
in  darkness  and  indigence  ;  but  the  symbols  of  sentiment 
must  not  be  too  literally  read.  Do  the  offerings  laid  by 
Christians  on  the  grave,  or  their  belief  in  bodily  resurrec- 
tion, mean  that  they  actually  think  their  dead  are  alive 
there  under  the  sod  ? 

The  Ancestral  Hall  is  the  open  conscience  of  the  people, 
where  all  duties  are  laid  bare  to  the  wisdom  and  Functions 
order  of  the  world,  enshrined   in    these   honored  Ancestral 
ones.     Here   is    the   family   sanctuary ;   here    the  Hal1- 
youth  assumes  the  virile  cap  ;  here  marriage  bonds  and 
betrothals  are  announced  ;  and  here  princes  and  scholars 
are  invested  with  office,  and  tributes  paid  to  public  worth.2 
In  these  halls  are  conducted  all  acts  of  self-government  : 
reading  of  wills,  distribution  of  property,  amicable  arrange- 
ments, trials  and  judgments;3  even  dramatic  scenes  for  the 
old,  and  plays  for  the  children.4     The  forms  of  the  tablet 
for  father  and  mother  do  not  differ.     This  filial  piety  of 
the  living  would  fain  establish  a  real  union  with  the  dead. 
Such  invocations  as  the  following  are  common  :  — 

"  Thy  body  is  laid  in  the  grave,  but  thy  spirit  dwells  in  this  temple 
of  our  home.  We  beseech  thee,  honored  one,  to  free  thyself  from  thy 
former  body,  and  abide  in  this  tablet  henceforth  and  for  ever."  5 

These  homes  of  invisible  friends,  constantly  renewed, 
outlast  other  dwellings.  Some  of  them  are  many  hun- 
dred years  old. 

i  Li-ki,  ch.  xix.  '  Plath,  Rel.  u.  Cult.  d.  alt.  Chin. 

»  Hiibner,  p.  589.     Zeitsch.  d.  D.  M.  G.  ;  XX.  482.  *  Plath. 

B  Zuchtkopf,  Arb.  d.  Russ.  Gesandsch.  I.  132,  236. 


7O2  BELIEFS. 

We  need  not  pause  on  the  dispute  of  the  Dominican  and 
Jesuit  Fathers,  whether  such  rites  were  idolatrous 

Christian       •* 

charges  of  or  not.  Though  the  Pope  refused  to  accept  the 
atry*  positive  assertion  of  the  Emperor  that  they  were 
worship  in  no  other  sense  than  that  of  gratitude  and  re- 
spect, and  even  the  Protestant  "  Chinese  Repository  "  but  a 
few  years  since  denounced  them  as  on  a  level  with  the 
rites  of  Moloch,1  it  is  quite  obvious  that  to  define  honors 
to  the  dead,  which  ascribe  to  them  no  divine  attributes  and 
even  treat  them  as  dependent  on  the  living,  as  worship  is 
to  employ  the  term  in  a  very  unusual  sense.  What  shall 
we  say  of  the  prayer  addressed  by  a  noted  Catholic  of  our 
day  to  the  saints  of  the  early  Church,  beseeching  them  to 
avert  the  calamity  of  a  certain  papal  dogma  ?2  The  Catholic 
would  supplant  Chinese  idolatry  by  the  rites  of  a  Church 
that  entitles  its  pontiff  the  man-God. 

More  important  is  the  question  as  to  what  special  form 
Nature  of  is  here  assumed  by  the  wide-spread  belief  in  spirit 
Chinese  intercourse.  Are  the  spirits  believed  to  be  really 

spirit  in- 
tercourse," present  ?    Confucius  "sacrificed  to  them  as  ifpres- 
contrasted        t    »»       t  h     says   «  YOU   cannot  yet  serve   men, 

with  that  J  J    >  J 

of  Chris-  how  can  you  serve  spirits?"  He  counsels  against 
om*  too  close  relations  with  them,  and  avoids  talking  of 
them.  Mencius  does  not  even  mention  the  ancestral  rites. 
The  doubtful  relation  of  these  two  great  teachers  to  the 
most  important  institution  of  their  country  was  perhaps 
owing  to  a  conviction  of  its  having  become,  or  having 
always  been,  a  superstition.  But  for  the  masses  the 
tablet  was  consecrated  by  love  and  belief  to  a  personal 
guardianship  analogous  to  that  which  Christians  have 
ascribed  to  saints,  to  the  departed,  and  even  to  the  Holy 
Family  as  present  in  pictures  and  images.  The  realism  of 
the  Chinese  however  prevents  their  expecting  miraculous 

1  July,  1849. 

*  Dr.  J.  H.  Newman;  see  note  in  SchafFs  Hist,  of  the  Vatican  Council (187 5). 


THE    ANCESTRAL    SHRINE.  703 

effects  from  an  object  so  tangible  as  the  tablet.  There  is 
also  a  dignity  and  reserve  in  it,  which  is  out  of  keeping 
with  such  feats  of  motion  and  expression  as  belpng  to  mod- 
ern spirit  manifestations.  These  are  prevalent  in  China, 
but  confined  to  a  low  sphere  of  mind,  where  they  take  rank 
with  divining  arts,  mysteries  of  geomancy,  and  magical 
evocations.1 

The  oldest  piety  is  described  as  dealing  with  spirits  "  not 
for  one's  ease  and  pleasure,"  but  as  if  "  afar  off  ;"  Itsmorai 
and  virtue  as  the  sacrifice  they  receive  from  men,  realism, 
giving  peace  and  good-will  as  its  reward.2  The  idea  seems 
to  involve  that  mingled  sense  of  "near  and  far,"  which 
everywhere  belongs  to  the  consciousness  of  unseen  pres- 
ence. The  old  Classics  always  teach  that  the  spirits 
listen  only  to  the  sincere.  The  Chinese  classics  nowhere 
encourage  the  ghost-seer ;  they  are  kept,  in  the  popu- 
lar mind,  apart  from  the  sphere  of  spirit  mediumship.8 
Nevertheless,  a  kind  of  incorporation  of  the  spirit  in  the 
tablet  as  its  visible  home  is  implied  in  the  recognized  con- 
ceptions of  its  nature. 

Spiritual  substance  in  general  —  as  invisible,  mysterious, 
all-penetrating,  and  all-producing,  neither  male  nor  chin( 
female  —  is  called  shin*     The  human  person,  as  ideas  of 
continued  life  after  death,  is  called  kwei-shin,  and  spmt' 
distinguished  from  the  hwan-k't,  or  breath  that  goes  up- 
ward,  and  the  pe,  or   animal   soul    that  goes  downward.5 
The  hivan  is  mental  and  active,  the  pe  gross  and  passive. 
The  change  wrought  in  them    by  death   may  be  said  to 
transform  them  respectively  into  shin  and  kwci,  by  which 
terms  they  are  defined  in  the  Imperial  Dictionary.     Kwei 
again   designates    the   return   of   the    individual   elements 

1  For  Chinese  planchettesand  spirit-writing,  see  Tyler's  Primitive  Culture,  I.  147,  148. 
»  Li-ki,  X.,  XXXII.  s  Notes  and  Queries,  II.  No.  2. 

*  Chalmers  derives  skin  from  shi,  or  £Y,  represented  by  the  sign  for  above,  and  three 
descending  lines.     By  the  Japanese,  natural  religion  is  called  Shintao,  the  "  Way  of  Spirits." 
6  Plath,  Rel.  d.  Alt.  Chin.  \    Malan's  Who  is  God  in  China,  p.  211. 


7O4  BELIEFS. 

to  their  proper  place.3  The  sum  of  these  and  other  more 
obscure  definitions  is  that  death  operates  a  closer  com- 
bination of.  these  elements  with  their  spiritual  or  cosmi- 
cal  essence  (shin)  in  a  real  being,  the  kwei-shin.  So 
close  is  this  process  to  the  living  world  and  its  sympa- 
thies, that  Visdelou  was  convinced  that  the  two  parts 
of  the  soul  are  believed  to  be  united  in  a  real  being 
through  the  love  of  those  who  render  these  pious  rites,  and 
to  be  drawn  thereby  to  the  offering.  2  The  later  philosophy 
conceives  the  kwei  as  fixed  or  localized  spirit,  and  the  shin 
as  expansive  and  mobile  ;  which  affords  ground  for  a  com- 
bination like  that  above  described.3  Confucius  says  the 
kwei-shin  are  everywhere,  though  unseen  and  unheard. 
This  obviously  frees  them  from  all  taint  of  sensuousness. 
"  Their  approaches  are  not  to  be  surmised  :  can  you  treat 
them  with  indifference  ?  "  4  Here,  as  in  the  Shi-king,  the 
kwei  assume  the  true  dignity  of  shin. 

Though  the  tablet  is  silent,  the  presence  of  an  indwell- 
How  its  m&  spirit  is  realized  in  other  ways.  The  popular 
presence  is  feeling  is  shown  in  the  story  of  the  young  wife, 
whose  filial  toil  in  heaping  the  sod  over  the  bodies 
of  her  starved  parents  was  aided  by  celestial  hands,  throw- 
ing on  a  thousand  spadefuls  to  her  one.  The  departed^  are 
called  upon  from  the  housetops  to  return  into  their  bodies ; 
and  popular  tales  describe  the  soul  as  leaving  the  body,  and 
resuming  or  even  exchanging  it  at  pleasure.  Marco  Polo 
tells  us  that  the  voices  of  spirits  are  heard  talking  in  the 
deserts  of  Thibet,  and  the  "  Buddhist  Pilgrims  "  are  Chinese 
vouchers  for  the  belief.  It  should  seem,  therefore,  that 
among  the  uneducated  similar  notions  of  ghostly  powers 
and  purposes  prevail  as  in  Europe  and  America,  and  that 

1  Chinese  Repository,  1848,  pp.  327-329.  The  word  kwei  carries,  in  this  sense  of  a 
returning  spirit,  something  of  the  vague  distrust  implied  in  our  words  "phantom"  and 
"ghost;"  whence  the  "  tinge  of  evil"  in  it  that  gives  color  to.  its  common  translation  by 
the  term  "  devil." 

*  Ibid.  p.  568.  a  Chu-hi. 

*  Chung-yung,  ch.  xvi. 


THE    ANCESTRAL    SHRINE.  705 

such  materialism  as  belongs  to  the  popular  notion  of  spirits 
on  one  side  of  the  world  prevails  also  on  the  other. 

It  is  probably  true  that,  as  many  insist,  Chinese  ration- 
alists "  cannot  understand  the  Christian  .idea  of  an  Relations 
invisible  person  without  form."  l  But  this  diffi-  of  spirit  to 
culty  is  not  only  very  common  with  Christians  who 
do  not  profess  to  be  rationalists,  but  is  in  fact  one  to  which 
most  reflecting  persons  are  subject,  whether  rationalists  or 
not.  We  must  remember  that  the  idea  of  form  is  substan- 
tially that  of  vehicle  or  manifestation  ;  and  in  this  sense 
certainly  it  belongs  to  all  conceptions  of  invisible  as  well  as 
visible  personality.  It  is  only  the  highest  reach  of  spiritual 
pantheism,  the  mystic  faith  in  super-personal  Intelligence, 
or  pure  Unity  transcending  all  analysis,  that  can  dispense 
with  some  more  or  less  defined  medium  of  this  kind  even 
in  the  idea  of  God ;  universal  law  itself  being  such  a  per- 
manent form,  or  divine  manifestation.  This  highest  reli- 
gious sentiment  escapes  the  limits  of  a  positive  object  of 
worship,  dwelling  rather  in  the  sense  of  divine  influences, 
in  the  restful  consciousness  of  harmonious  and  unchange- 
able relations,  a  home  feeling  in  life  and  destiny.  And  the 
Chinese  sentiment  towards  the  ancestor  in  the  tablet,  how- 
ever it  may  fall  below  this,  is  at  least  a  repose  of  the  mind 
in  somewhat  impalpable  and  inconceivable,  and  yet  held  to 
be  adequate.  In  the  kwei-shin  the  form  is  con-  The  kwei- 
ceived,  if  at  all,  only  as  an  inevitable  association  shin- 
with  the  past  earthly  life  ;  and  of  this  rather  with  the 
spiritual  qualities  and  traits,  if  we  may  judge  from  the 
popular  romances,  than  the  physical.  It  is  obviously  an 
error  to  confound  this  cultus  with  pure  fetichism,  Ancestral 
common  in  Chinese  life  ;  whose  chief  feature  is  "^  "e°tj_ 
the  subjection  of  the  object  of  faith  to  the  will  of  chism. 
its  devotee.  The  hand  that  can  pull  down  and  throw 

1  See  Carre,  L*  Anc.  Orient.  I.  284. 
45 


706  BELIEFS. 

aside  what  it  has  set  up  has  little  to  do  with  the  homage  of 
the  child  to  the  father.  The  liberty  taken  by  the  Emperor 
to  throw  down  the  altars  of  the  gods  of  land  and  grain 
and  set  up  others  when  the  seasons  do  not  prosper,  as  he 
changes  his  mandarins  at  pleasure,  could  never  be  taken 
with  the  ancestral  tablet  or  rite.  This  would  be  the  most 
heinous  crime  known  to  Chinese  conscience. 

Nature  affirms,  in  these  antique  enduring  rites  of  the 
farthest  East,  a  direct  communion  with  the  unseen,  com- 
pared with  which  the  ceremonial  symbolism  of  more  de- 
veloped forms  of  worship  seems  earthly  and  trivial.  How 
touching,  I  had  almost  said  how  sublime,  this  simplicity 
of  method  and  means !  A  bare  room,  an  altar  holding 
fruits  and  flowers,  a  memorial  tablet  to  the  invisible  guar- 
dian and  friend.  So  for  the  Shinto  shrines  of  Japan  a 
white  screen,  a  polished  mirror,  a  floral  offering  suffice,  — 
the  pure  heart,  the  self -judging  conscience,  the  grateful 
sense  of  beauty  and  of  life. 

The  homage  paid  by  the  Chinese  to  ancestors,  then,  has 

elements  that  deserve  high  respect  from  believers 

neseances-  m   continuance  beyond  death.     It  is  at  least  the 

trai  rites     antique  chrysalid  where  move  and  grow  germs  of 

as  diviniz-  .....  . 

ing  the  what  they  hold  to  be  spiritual  intercourse,  m  the 
Home.  higher  sense  of  the  words.  But  it  is  more  than  an 
evidence  of  another  life  ;  more  than  a  covered  germ.  It  is 
loyalty  to  a  spiritual  fact  and  a  natural  relation,  maintained 
at  their  real  value  as  the  root  of  social  as  well  as  private  good. 
It  is  the  consecration  of  the  Home,  in  its  substance  as  fil- 
ial piety  and  parental  care.  Better  evidence  of  the  moral 
soundness  of  mankind  could  not  be  than  to  have  chosen, 
on  so  vast  a  scale,  to  rest  its  hopes  of  the  unseen  world  on 
its  own  purest  affections  and  holiest  duties.  Nor  is  it  un- 
becoming our  science,  in  studying  how  vast  a  civilization 
has  been  reared  upon  this  principle,  to  emphasize  these  its 


THE    ANCESTRAL    SHRINE. 

positive  elements  rather  than  the  very  obvious  extravagance 
to  which  its  institution  has  been  carried  in  China  :  the 
persistent  immaturity  in  which  it  holds  the  son  in  relation 
to  the  father  ;  the  interception  of  many  aspirations  to 
higher  than  human  or  personal  objects  ;  the  crystallization 
of  rites  and  customs  befitting  only  an  early  stage  of  thought. 
Into  these  we,  at  the  opposite  pole  of  temperament,  and  un- 
der the  ceaseless  goad  of  science,  shall  not  be  likely  to  fall. 
But  the  apotheosis  of  Domestic  Duty,  the  full  faith  in  ties 
of  nature,  in  sanctities  of  filial  relation,  in  disciplines  of 
home-culture,  are  an  example  we  cannot  afford  to  depre- 
ciate. They  have  proved  protective  against  priest-craft  and 
caste,  and  all  permanent  social  disqualifications  on  Theirben. 
the  one  hand,  and  the  lawlessness  of  individualism 


on  the  other.  They  have  enforced  popular  educa- 
tion, supplied  a  balance  to  trade  and  labor  in  the  most 
crowded  population  of  the  globe,  and  endowed  it  with  a 
steadiness  of  purpose  and  a  general  morale  unsurpassed 
for  frugality,  patience,  perseverance,  fidelity,  self-restraint, 
and  mutual  helpfulness  ;  all  of  which  foster  domestic  rela- 
tions, and  are  fostered  by  them  in  return.  Most  of  these 
practical  virtues,  which  it  is  the  glory  of  "  heathen  "  China 
to  have  maintained  abreast  with  the  materialism  of  indus- 
try, are  precisely  what  the  wonderful  economies  of  our 
industrial  machinery  have  not  contributed,  to  say  the  least, 
to  advance.  If  the  statistical  science  of  the  most  enlight- 
ened nations  may  be  trusted,  it  is  time  to  ask 

J  A  lack  in 

whether  illegitimacy  and  libertinage,  the  influence  western 
of  impure  literature  upon  family  morals,  the  loose-  cmhzatlon- 
ness  of  the  principle  of  responsibility  in  parental  con- 
science, and,  worse  still,  the  -eagerness  of  the  young  to 
gratify  a  reckless  thirst  for  extravagance  with  resources 
they  have  not  earned  ;  whether  the  spread  of  communism 
in  some  countries,  and  'the  club  and  class  cabals  that  in 
others  are  undermining  the  safeguards  of  private  life,  —  do 


708  BELIEFS. 

not  demand  decisive  return  to  the  natural  loyalties  and 
disciplines  of  domestic  culture.  So  indispensable  an  offset 
to  the  drift  into  solidarity  and  production  by  machinery 
and  mass-work  alone  would  seem  to  call  for  its  special 
prophets  and  crusaders  before  it  quite  becomes  a  forlorn 
hope  for  our  time.  We  cannot  be  insensible  to  the  fact 
that  the  Chinese  are  holding  forth,  under  whatever  im- 
perfections, a  forgotten  ideal ;  and  may  be  destined  to  ex- 
ert its  healthful  influence  in  those  educational  reactions 
which  are  to  attend  the  advancing  communion  of  races 
and  beliefs. 


THE   FUTURE  LIFE. 

"  Music  and  rites,"  says  the  Li-ki,  "  are  the  means  by 
Spirits  as-  which  spirits  are  brought  into  communion  with 
sociated  man  .  Because  they  represent  the  harmonies  of 
cosmicai  heaven  and  earth" l  This  spirit-world  was  thus 
associated  with  day  and  night,  with  sunshine  and 
storm,  with  the  order  of  Nature  in  its  whole  relation  to  hu- 
man life.  The  concrete  habits  of  the  Chinese  mind  absorb 
all  invisible  life  into  the  homely  cosmicai  associations  in 
which  it  moves  ;  not  needing  a  heaven  apart  from  these, 
and  perhaps  accepting  a  future  life  with  less  hesitation  than 
if  it  had  been  more  inclined  to  dissatisfaction  with  the  actual 
and  present.  So  the  Egyptian  monuments  not  only  show 
the  spirit  as  engaged  after. death  in  the  ordinary  functions 
of  this  life,  but  as  actually  rising  from  its  tomb  to  mingle 
with  the  beams  of  the  sun;,  and  the  mystic  title  of  their 
ancient  "  Book  of  the  Dead  "  (Pire-em-hrou)  is  believed  by 
good  scholars  to  mean  "  The  Outgoing  as  (or  with)  the 
Day."2 

1  Ch.  ix.  xvi.  »  Congres,  Internal,  d.  Oriental.  (1875),  II.  37~47- 


THE    FUTURE    LIFE. 

"  The  Chinese  were  thoroughly  this-siders.  Virtue  and 
vice  had  their  returns  here."  l  But  it  does  not  fol-  „, . 

now  Chi- 

low  from  this  absence  of  purely  "  immaterial "  retri-  nese  inter- 
bution  from  their  theory,  that  they  saw  no  life  Je^J 
beyond  death.  This  inference  is  usually  drawn  to  faith  in 
from  the  premise.2  But  if  "  immateriality  "  is  to 
be  the  test,  we  shall  find  very  little  of  such  belief  in  any 
religion.  Think  of  the  future  world  of  D.ante,  of  the  mod- 
ern spiritist,  of  the  New  Testament,  in  this  point  of  view. 
That  profoundly  moral  sanctions  make  up  the  substance  of 
ancestral  honors  in  China  has  been  sufficiently  shown  in 
this  volume.3  What,  for  instance,  can  be  more  positive 
than  the  Shi-king's  tribute  to  good  King  Wan,  as  "  bright 
in  heaven,  ascending  and  descending  on  the  right  and  left 
of  Shang-te  "  ? 4  It  is  true  that  the  emphasis  on  familiar 
scenes  and  interests  is  such  as  would  naturally  belong  to  a 
busy  productive  people,  to  whom  life  is  too  full  of  meaning 
to  engender  doubts  as  to  its  continuance,  or  abstract  medi- 
tations on  its  endlessness.  As  an  unconscious  motive  and 
light,  the  sense  of  essential  existence,  if  we  "may  use  the 
term,  is  in  fact  always  conditioned  on  our  appreciation  of 
instant  values.  The  richer  we  find  life  in  materials  for 
our  powers  and  needs,  the  more  precious  it  is  likely  to 
appear,  and  the  more  worthy  to  endure  ;  while  even  the 
doubts  of  the  understanding,  however  strong,  are  not  apt 
to  trouble  that  confidence  of  content  which  proceeds  from 
a  deep,  unconscious  participation  in  the  very  spirit  of  life. 
The  Chinese  are  not  without  this  temperamental  faith  in  liv- 
ing, fed  by  a  genial  outlook  on  the  world  and  a  keen  sense 
of  its  uses  and  relations.  The  result  would  naturally  be 

i  Plath. 

1  Carre,  I.  396  ;  Biichner  in  Kraft  und  Staff.  Wuttke  thinks  a  future  life  is  inconsistent 
with  the  Chinese  system,  "a  cuckoo's  egg  in  it,  if  it  exists  at  all  ;  "  yet  after  quoting  passages 
illustrating  both  sides  of  the  question,  he  admits  that  those  who  denied  a  future  life  were  re- 
garded as  heretics. 

8  See  also  Meadows's  admirable  reply  to  Hue  (Ch.  Reb.  pp.  66,  67). 

«  Shi-king,  III.  i.  i. 


7IO  BELIEFS. 

an  indefiniteness  in  the  idea  of  man's  future  destiny,  which 
indefinite-  is  better  than  most,  if  not  all,  attempts  at  pene- 
trating  tne  veil-  Some  of  the  later  philosophers 
speak  of  the  alternations  of  life  and  death  in  such 
terms  as  to  hint  that  man,  like  all  else,  comes  to  an  end  at 
last.  But  the  people,  satisfied  with  the  simple  sense  of 
continuity  in  the  duties  and  affections,  seem  to  have  left 
the  future  in  great  degree  undefined  ;  the  constant  con- 
sciousness of  being  part  and  parcel  of  their  vast  real  uni- 
verse of  law,  custom,  labor,  and  rite  serving  them  instead 
of  development  in  this  direction,  either  theological,  myth- 
ological, or  dogmatic.1 

And  I  may  add,  artistic.  For  it  is  in  this  way  I  should 
why  Chi-  explain  the  singular  avoidance  of  interest  in  remote 
nese  An  posterity  shown  in  Chinese  art.  Its  leverage  is  not 

does  not         r  J 

look  to  the  in  the  future;  its  labor  and  desire  stop  with  the 
no^per'ma-  present.  The  Chinese  have  had  none  of  the  pas- 
nent-  sion  of  equally  industrial  Egypt  for  putting  their 
faith  in  future  existence  into  permanent  forms.  Longevity 
is  their  ideal."  "  This  word  is  written  on  tiles,  coffins,  cups, 
shoes  ;  it  figures  in  all  ceremonies  at  births,  marriages,  and 
funerals." 2  Yet  there  is  little  effort  to  erect  any  thing 
that  shall  endure.  The  Great  Wall  itself  shows  little  skill 
in  structure ;  and  was  raised  for  no  other  than  defensive 
purposes.  Like  every  thing  else  in  China,  it  was  the  prod- 
uct of  immediate  wants.  The  noble  bridge-work  which  is 
so  abundant  has  a  similar  origin.  The  colossal  pillars  of 
the  Ming  tombs  are  of  wood,  and  the  avenues  of  marble 
animals,  rudely  carved,  are  of  recent  origin.  No  mighty 
works  of  antiquity  remain.  Having  abundance  of  stone, 
they  prefer  brick  or  wood  ;  and  their  trivial  architecture 
rapidly  decays.  Their  memorial  arches  are  ephemeral. 
Nowhere  a  love  of  construction  for  grandeur  and  perma- 

1  Of  modifications  introduced  by  Buddhism,  a  foreign  importation,  we  shall  speak  hereafter. 
*    Fleming,  p.  185. 


THE    FUTURE    LIFE.  /I  I 

nence,  like  the  Roman  taste  for  spanning  valleys  with 
needless  monumental  aqueducts  of  stone ;  nor  of  con- 
struction for  barbarous  uses  as  if  for  all  time,  like  that 
which  built  the  Colosseum  ;  nor  of  works  dictated  by  a 
brooding  fear  of  death  and  change,  like  the  sepulchral 
Pyramids.  Here  was  a  live  people,  too  creative  in  the 
present  to  think  of  the  future  as  needing  special  provision. 
Possessed  by  the  very  soul  of  permanence,  they  wanted  no 
physical  proofs  of  its  reality.  Full  of  self-help,  they  spent 
themselves  on  the  realities  of  help.  Filled  with  gratitude 
to  the  men  who  had  been  so  much  to  them,  they  gave 
themselves  to  their  service,  assured  that  future  generations 
would  reap  the  same  ardor  in  their  turn.  It  does  not  look 
like  utilitarianism,  that  these  devotees  of  the  dead  should 
have  so  ideal  a  trust  in  the  unborn.  It  does  not  look  like 
barbarism,  that  such  conservatives  in  all  human  relations 
should  find  their  symbolism  of  these  lasting  things  in  such 
outward  fragilities  as  the  wooden  tablet,  the  burnt  paper, 
and  the  "  flowery  scroll."  It  does  not  look  like  material- 
ism, that  the  aid  of  durable  earthly  materials  should  not  be 
sought  to  perpetuate  what  was  so  dear  as  the  memory  of 
the  departed.  Their  sense  of  the  eternal  was  concerned 
with  that  which  most  served  the  purposes  of  life.  They 
trusted  the  most  fugitive  of  forms  —  a  written  word  —  to 
carry  their  messages  to  coming  men,  because  it  was  the  rich- 
est source  of  present  culture,  the  builder  of  all  living  bless- 
ings for  man ;  a  presentiment  surely  of  the  most  wonderful 
fact  of  modern  civilization. 

A  more  interior  apprehension  of  the  everlasting  is  sug- 
gested  here  than   we  are  wont  to  accord  to  this 

,  .      .  Content 

prosaic  race  ;  a  compensation  for  their  unprogres-  wkh  the 
sive  habits   through   the  virtues   therewith  allied.   real°rder 

of  Nature 

How  far  does    their  unconcern  about   the  future  and  laws 
come  from  complete  satisfaction  with  the  order  of  oflife' 
Nature,  the  harmony,  as  they  phrase  it,  of  the  heavens  and 


712  BELIEFS. 

the  earth  ?  The  universe  is  to  them  no  place  of  exile,  but 
a  home ;  builded  of  unchanging  relations  with  the  dear 
and  immemorial  needs  of  man  ;  its  mysteries,  solved  as  they 
arise  for  their  own  experience,  shall  not  puzzle  nor  afflict 
other  generations  yet  to  come.  Why  hold  communion  by 
carved  or  piled  stones  with  people  whose  being  is  felt  as 
inwardly  identical  with  their  own,  and  under  similar  ances- 
tral blessings  ?  As  their  belief  of  a  constant  presence  of 
the  invisible  spirit  has  needed  no  dogma  of  bodily  resur- 
rection, so  it  has  required  no  outward  symbols  of  enduring 
life. 

Other  than  the  religion  of  the  tablet  is  the  inherited 
Chinese  fetichism,  which  here  as  elsewhere  represents  the 
Animism;  lower  grade  of  spiritual  intelligence.  Intense  in- 
cai  anT"  terest  in  tne  visible  world  has  produced  the  person- 
moral  in-  ification  of  natural  forces  on  the  wjdest  scale,  but 
of  a  very  peculiar  kind.  Without  the  aesthetic 
charm  of  Greek  polytheism,  or  the  inert  mysticism  of  the 
Hindu,  this  animistic  faith  penetrates  all  phenomena  with 
familiar  interests,  subjecting  them,  in  a  rationalistic  and 
practical  spirit,  to  the  control  of  human  intelligence  ;  so 
that  the  shin  of  the  Chinese  are  too  much  a  part  of  com- 
mon life  to  impose  harmful  superstitions  on  their  worship- 
pers. The  entire  absence  of  tendency  in  Chinese  thought 
to  deify  sensuality  or  vice  in  any  form  is  a  good  educator 
of  these  animistic  powers.  The  reading  of  cosmical  activi- 
ties as  human  uses,  which  here  constitutes  the  science  of 
the  unseen,  recognizes  in  these  energies  a  basis  of  intelli- 
gence, though  in  the  most  atomically  divided  form.  That 
the  heavenly  bodies  and  the  features  of  the  earth,  the  air, 
land,  and  grain,  the  roads,  fields,  and  dwellings,  the  gate,  the 
door,  the  chamber,  should  all  have  spirit  guardians  against 
evil  powers  is  a  belief  which  does  not  distinguish  the  Chi- 
nese from  any  other  nation  of  antiquity,  nor  from  any  reli- 


THE    FUTURE    LIFE.  713 

I 

gion  except  that  of  modern  science.  Where  the  sages, 
lawgivers,  benefactors  of  the  past,  still  inhabit  the  world, 
the  places  that  knew  them  can  have  no  animistic  powers 
that  are  not  controlled  by  human  uses.  As  every  trade 
and  art  in  China  pays  homage  to  its  traditional  founder,  so 
every  natural  element  is  under  the  care  of  its  first  utilizer 
for  the  benefit  of  man.1  No  Bacon  was  needed  to  call  this 
civilization  out  of  idle  dreams  into  busy  humanities.  All 
its  complex  interfusion  of  seen  and  unseen  goes  on  its  unify- 
harmoniously  without  organized  church  or  priest-  ^RS^T 
hood;2  a  magnetic  play  of  instincts  giving  unity,  life- 
method,  and  geniality  to  these  manifold  ties.  On  this 
lower  plane  a  mutual  understanding  and  co-ordination  has 
been  effected  between  a  vast  number  of  people,  which 
surpasses  all  achievements  of  modern  zeal  for  religious 
uniformity. 

It  is  needless  to  enter  into  details.  Mandarins  pay  ser- 
vice to  their  official  seals,  sacrifice  to  the  "  god  of  the  gate," 
and  to  the  symbolic  fox,  totem  of  official  skill.3  The 
Peking  "Gazette"  abounds  in  petitions  for  raising  monu- 
ments to  local  genii,  whose  action  is  recognized  in  every 
prosperous  turn.  The  shrines  are  hung  with  votive  tab- 
lets for  deliverances  by  land  and  sea,  like  those  common 
on  walls  of  Catholic  churches  and  dwellings.  Like  the 
Christian  saints,  the  shin  watch  over  the  places  they  once 
inhabited. 

The  notion  of  special  providence  is  broken  up  into  a 
vast  number  of  faces;  but  the  idea  of  order  so  Andinthe 
pervades  these  subdivisions,  that  the  course  of  conception 
Nature  moves  on  as  if  in  a  perfect  understanding,  ° 
because  it  is  interpreted  in  entire  accord  with  the  instincts 
of  the  race.  So  naive  is  this  reflection,  that  the  "  hearth- 

1  So  with  the  Shintoism  of  Japan. 

*  The  fetichist  or  animist  beliefs  of  the  Chinese  are  independent  of  Buddhism  or 
Taoism. 

3  Doolittle,  I.  318. 


714  BELIEFS. 

I 

spirit "  reports  to  Shang-te  the  conduct  of  the  family  at 
the  close  of  the  year,  as  palpably  as  the  more  ideal  angels 
of  Mahometan  and  Christian  faith  write  down  their  rec- 
ords for  the  judgment  day ;  and  the  celestial  assizes  are 
represented  as  conducted  on  the  same  method  as  the  ter- 
restrial ones  in  Canton.1  Grotesque  figures  of  symbolic 
persons  and  creatures  stand  in  the  doorways,  serving  uses 
as  much  prized  as  the  beauty  of  the  corresponding  images  of 
Hermes  and  Apollo  was  by  the  more  refined  Greeks,  and 
indicating  no  sense  of  discord  nor  failure  of  confidence 
as  to  the  order  of  Nature,  of  which  they  multiply  such 
contorted  reflections. 

Miiller  regards  "  Shin-worship "  as  an  aspiration  to 
Theories  science,  on  the  way  to  such  abstractions  as  genera 
"bshin-  an^  species.2  The  positivists,  on  the  other  hand, 
worship."  point  to  the  fact  that  fetichism,  which  confounds 
all  the  phenomena  of  movement  with  life,  only  gradually 
reaches  a  sense  of  personality  as  something  distinct  from 
these  appearances  ;  on  this  track  the  Chinese  masses  have 
gone  no  farther  than  to  emphasize  (as  shin)  the  'notion  of 
person,  without  detaching  it  from  that  of  activity  as  such.3 
These  are  valuable  suggestions,  as  helping  to  explain  the 
elements  of  order  and  unity  found  in  Chinese  animism,  by 
showing  it  to  be  a  stage  of  normal  intellectual  growth. 

The  division  of  the  world  between  two  related  princi- 
Panthe-  P^6S'  tne  active  and  the  passive,  is  essential  to 
isticeie-  Chinese  philosophy,  and  has  its  instinctive  form 
among  the  masses.  In  the  union  of  these  principles 
consists  the  harmony  of  man  with  Nature.  In  the  soul  and 
the  world,  the  active  element  (spirit)  is  identical  ;  as  the 
soul  of  the  Egyptian  is  one  with  Osiris.  Thus  the  word 
shin,  as  spirit,  conveys  at  least  a  vague  sense  of  the  whole 
of  invisible  life  ;  and  in  this  the  manifold  forms  of  animism 
are  absorbed. 

1  Nevius,  pp.  134-138.     Bastian,  Peking,  p.  214. 

*  Vorles.  ub.  Rel.  Wissensch.  (1874),  I-  188.  »  Lafitte,  p.  17. 


FUNG-SHUI.  715 

But  while  this  unity  stands  very  clear  in  the  minds  of 
Chinese  thinkers,  the  contrasts  and  antagonisms  of  Nature 
are  fully  present  to  the  people,  constituting  a  curious  form 
of  superstition  of  which  we  have  now  to  speak. 


FUNG-SHUI. 

GREEK  sculptures  and  legends  celebrated  the  Harpies  of 
the  Air,  and  the  Nereids  of  the  streams  ;  and  the  Persian 
Magi,  according  to  Herodotus,  sacrificed  human  beings  to 
the  winds  to  save  the  fleet  of  Xerxes  from  wreck.  The 
elemental  powers  were  recognized  in  China  in  a  more 
prosaic  way. 

The  meaning  of  Fung-shui  (wind  and  water)  is  mainly 
meteorological  ;  but  it  has  a  wider  application  to  Nature 
influence  in  general,  —  such  as  the  flow  of  ele- 
mentary  forces,  or  the  power  of  fashion.1  Grad- 
ually  developed  out  of  the  simple  divinations  of  antiquity, 
it  has  become  an  elaborate  system  of  popular  sorcery  for 
the  selection  of  lucky  times,  good  locations,  and  promising 
plans.  Subtle  breaths  are  thought  to  proceed  from  the 
south  and  north,  bringing  good  and  bad  influences  respec- 
tively, and  the  aim  is  to  block  the  one  and  open  the  way  for 
the  other  ;  whence  a  body  of  geomantic  rules  applied  to 
natural  features,  by  which  means  certain  forms  and  combi- 
nations of  these  are  avoided,  and  others  preferred.2  Geo- 
mantic mounds  are  raised  for  protection  ;  and  paths  are 
wound  about  to  keep  off  evil,  or  to  correspond  with  the 
shapes  traced  by  constellations  on  the  sky.3  Every  thing  in 
health  or  happiness  depends  upon  the  configuration  of  the 
land  ;  even  the  decay  of  towns  comes  of  wrong  fung-shui. 

1  See  Chin.  Repos.  Sept.  1849.     Yates's  Lect.  at  Shanghai,  1867. 

*  In  England,  in  the  i6th  century,  the  South  wind  was  thought  to  bring  corruption. 

8  Edkins,  in  Chin.  Recorder  (April  and  May,  1872). 


7l6  BELIEFS. 

Of  all  this  we  find  nothing  in  the  Shi-king,  where  winds  are 
simply  winds,  and  the  millfoil  and  tortoise  do  all  the  divin- 
ing. The  "  Great  Plan "  of  the  Shu-king  declares  that 
there  is  a  natural  and  moral  order  of  the  world,  which 
it  constructs  upon  numerical  formulas  and  mutual  depen- 
dencies ;  but  here,  too,  is  no  trace  of  the  definite  geomancy 
of  fung-shui.  This  substitute  for  physical  science  has  at 
last  reached  its  typical  instrument,  a  compass ;  which 
combines  in  concentric  circles  supposed  correspondences 
between  the  stars  and  the  earth,  parts  of  the  human' body, 
colors,  moral  relations,  and  the  eight  diagrams  of  Fo-hi 
combined  in  sixty-four  ways  ;  the  whole  arranged  around 
a  magnetic  needle,  and  employed  as  a  cyclic  calendar  and 
calculator  of  numerical  mysteries  for  purposes  of  fung- 
shui  science,  by  street  sorcerers  and  fortune-tellers,  es- 
pecially of  the  Tao  sect. 

But  there  are  elements  in  this  pseudo-science  which  de- 
serve more  notice  than  its  foolish  schemes  of  land 

Based  on 

natural  and  weather.  It  is  associated  with  the  national 
philosophy,  and  essentially  rationalistic.  Probably 
for  this  reason  its  treatment  by  the  educated  classes  is 
very  lenient ;  their  scepticism  contenting  itself  with  warn- 
ings against  superstition,  while  granting  its  special  desires. 
Fung-shui  has  nothing  arbitrary  about  it ;  not  a  current 
but  moves  by  fixed  rules  of  Nature  unchangeable  by  man. 
His  object  is  not  to  alter  the  facts,  but  to  get  at  them.  The 
laws  of  this  groping  science  are  held  to  be  the  order  of 
things,  not  caprices,  nor  interferences.  They  are  based  on 
such  affirmations  as  that  every  thing  on  earth  has  a  counter- 
part in  heaven,  which  human  reason  can  discern  ;  and  the 
numbers  assigned  to  each  element  are  as  ultimate  as  the 
anthmoi  of  Pythagoras,  or  the  intervals  of  the  musical  scale. 
In  this  respect  they  are  an  advance  on  the  earlier  notion  of 
a  plan  of  world-rules  revealed  by  their  maker  to  the  model 
emperor,  Yu.  To  Chu-hi  (twelfth  century),  who  sought  to 


FUNG-SHUI.  717 

erect  the  cosmical  relations  as  accepted  in  China  into  a 
system,  is  due  the  complexity  of  the  present  fung-shui 
rules,  and  their  partial  hold  on  the  educated  class.  Eitel 
so  far  recognizes  this  rationalistic  quality,  as  to  call  them 
"the  rudiments  of  natural  science  in  China." 

How  much  real  knowledge  lurks  in  the  folds  of  these 
odd  fancies  is  as  yet  uncertain.  But  we  cannot  Reiations 
doubt  that  many  observations,  sanitary,  agricultural,  to  positive 
and  climatic,  have  been  interwoven  in  so  ancient  a 
system,  the  main  object  of  which  has  been  to  work  at 
geodesic  phenomena.  Its  fanciful  "compass"  at  least  cen- 
tres in  a  magnetic  needle.  Certain  hours  of  day  and  night 
are  held  more  fatal  than  others  to  human  life.  The  rules 
for  locating  dwellings  prescribe  good  open  prospects  and 
absence  of  water  and  white  ants.  Chinese  agriculture  itself 
involves  no  little  acquaintance  with  the  laws  of  meteorol- 
ogy ;  and  this  is  of  course  incorporated  in  the  current 
fung-shui.  Like  animism  and  "  ancestor-worship,"  this 
system  testifies  to  the  tendency  of  the  Chinese,  through  all 
their  dualism,  to  conceive  the  universe  as  one  vast  order,  of 
which  man  is  a  part.  And  this  is  clear,  whether  we  regard 
its  lower  or  higher  forms,  the  mystic  compass  of  the  sor- 
cerer or  the  philosophy  of  Chu-hi,  who  reduces  all  spiritual 
existence  to  one  substance. 

However  obscure  may  be  these  germs  of  science,  they 
are  more  obvious  than  in  the  mythologies  of  the  more 
poetic  Greeks  and  Jews.  And  our  studies  of  these  Chinese 
realists  will  have  prepared  us  to  hear  without  surprise  that, 
with  all  their  regard  for  fung-shui  localities,  they  have 
opened  the  country  to  meteoric  stations  and  to  the  tele- 
graphic method  of  storm  warnings.1 

1  Mr.  Hart's  arrangements  with  the  Government  are  given  in  Baird's  Scientific  Annual 
for  1874. 


71 8  BELIEFS. 


DIVINATION. 

THE  earliest  notions  of  the  Chinese  concerning  man's 
Divination  relations  with  the  mysteries  of  the  cosmos  do  not 
1   appear  in  Fung-shui,  nor  in  the  animism  of  Shin- 
human       worship,  but  in  divination  ;   by   the   tortoise,   the 
knowledge.  minfoilj  dreams,  and  lots. 

Divination  is  practised  by  all  races  that  seek  to  acquire 
a  knowledge  of  the  unseen  future.1  It  occupies  the  margin 
which  separates  the  possible  from  the  attained  ;  and  the 
fine  conjectures  of  the  scientific  imagination  are  but  its 
highest  form,  made  accessible  by  growing  insight  into 
Nature.  Its  basis  everywhere,  more  or  less  clearly  and 
consciously  seen,  is  a  physical  order  whose  ways  are  re- 
cognized as  fixed  and  calculable,  and  whose  data  it  is  sought 
to  trace  to  some  sure  result.  It  differs  from  fetichism 
and  supernaturalism  in  substituting  the  permanent  for  the 
capricious,  and  laws  for  interfering  volitions.  It  is  the  first 
clear  sign  of  man's  confidence  in  Nature,  of  his  elevation 
above  the  mere  dread  of  unseen  powers.  His  divination  is 
his  bold  venture  into  the  sea  of  futurit  ,  bearing  a  talisman 
to  discern  its  favoring  winds  and  currents.  He  binds  spirits 
by  the  seal  of  Solomon,  and  utters  the  potent  words  which 
he  believes  to  express  their  secret  necessities  and  sure 
tendencies,  so  transforming  them  into  uses. 

For  the  Chinese,  divination  has  always  had  peculiar  at- 
a-  tractions.  An  eager  curiosity  about  details,  and  a 
'in!  love  of  handling  the  physical  world,  have  caused 
terest  of  augury  to  hold  a  larger  place  in  their  life  than  any 
n^lTthe  other  form  of  intercourse  with  the  invisible,  if  we 
a*-  except  the  service  of  ancestors.  The  quiet  and 

self-controlled  attitude  involved  in  it  is  in  accord  with  their 
mental  habits  ;  and  we  cannot  but  note  its  contrast  with 

1  See  Lenormant,  Divinat.  des  Chaldtens. 


DIVINATION.          \      f,  /*         7ffy      ; 

'U      V     <' 

the  passionate   zeal  of   mediaeval   sorcerers  Whose  terro^  y 

before   unseen  powers  was   so  fertile  in  cruelty  'ttf  man.   J* 
Soothsaying    in    China    is   not    a  matter  of    imaginditioji^      O^, 
but  of  arithmetic.     Fate  can  be  settled  by  the  calendar^/ 
"  The  Chinese  who  will  know  the  future  does  not  intoxicate     '      / 

T -~4r 

himself  with  wine,  dance,  or  gas,  but  goes  to  counting.  He 
does  not  take  the  drum,  but  the  almanac.  Every  thing  in 
heaven  and  earth  is  matter  of  clear  calculation."  J 

It   is   not   edifying  to  hear  hurricanes,  earthquakes,  and 
eclipses  ascribed  to  man's  disarrangement  of  the  Contrasted 
properties  of  numbers ;  but  this  is  cheerful  in  com-  ^h0^tes 
parison  with  the  bloody  persecution  of  the  heathen  principles 
by  the  Emperor  Theodosius,  upon  the  ground  that  ^znT 
their  unbelief    brought  storms  and  famines  from   terror- 
the  wrath  of  God  ;2  or  with  the  hideous  "  Malleus  "  of  the 
inquisitor  Sprenger,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  compiled  as  a 
guide  for  hunting  out  heretics,  and  inspired  by  the  insane 
idea  that  the  Devil  had  got  possession   of  all  the  times, 
seasons,' and  human  doings  of  the  Christian  world.3 

No  effects  could  ever  be  produced  in  China  by  earthquake, 
typhoon,  or  eclipse  resembling  the  terror  and  despair  which 
have  swept  over  Europe  at  various  periods,  in  expectation 
of  the  destruction  of  the  world  for  its  sins,  since  the  days 
when  the  great  Augustine  announced  that  the  prophecies  of 
Jesus  and  John  were  about  to  be  fulfilled  upon  the  hope- 
lessly depraved  nations  ;  the  abject  self-contempt  and  mortal 
agony  with  which  almost  the  whole  population  fled  to  their 
altars  or  the  wilderness,  when  the  thousand  years  of  pro- 
bation had  brought  the  hour  set  for  the  loosing- of  Satan 
and  God's  judgment  day ;  the  similar  results  of  similar 
predictions  six  hundred  years  later,  in  the  age  of  Henry 
IV.  and  the  civil  wars  of  France  ;  and  the  ever  renewed 
spasms  produced  by  every  fanatical  divine  with  the  books 
of  Daniel  and  the  Apocalypse  in  his  hand,  till  modern 

1  Wuttke,  II.  71.  2  Maury,  Magie  et  Astrologie. .  3  Michelet,  La  Sorcilre. 


720  BELIEFS. 

science  exorcised  the  demon  of  supernatural  wrath.1  Of 
such  effects  the  dogma  of  Predestination  is  the  fruitful 
parent. 

The  quality  and  effects  of  divination  will  differ  with 
Ma  ic  the  *ke  temPerament  °f  races  and  the  nature  of  re- 
reverse  'ligions.  It  is  a  form  of  magic;  and  magic  is  the 
reverse  side  °f  every  great  philosophy  and  faith. 
One  side  of  such  a  system  is  always  universal, 


impersonal,  ideal  ;  a  lofty  plane  of  divine  order, 
on  which  man  rests  without  seeking  either  for  petty  com- 
munications or  for  interferences  by  miracle.  The  other 
side  is  represented  by  interests  of  detail,  which  draw  away 
this  ideal  trust  to  the  realm  of  special  providences  and  hu- 
man expedients  for  directing  the  course  of  Nature  to  pri- 
vate gratification.  But  here  divination  lapses  into  sorcery  ; 
which,  instead  of  consulting  a  fixed  order  of  Nature,  seeks 
to  produce  arbitrary  changes  in  the  course  of  things.  This 
is  essentially  the  same,  whether  vested  in  Brahman  priest, 
or  Mongol  Shaman,  or  early  Christian  exorcist,  'or  later 
prayer-makers  working  on  the  Divine  will  to  bring  rain  in 
drought  or  miracles  in  a  good  cause.  But  divination  always 
assumes  a  fixed  order,  which  it  would  interpret  and  apply. 
In  China,  men  divine  what  shall  become  of  them  by  study- 
ing the  figures  on  a  burnt  tortoise  shell.  In  Christendom, 
dogmatic  tests  of  belief  are  the  tortoise-backs  of  the  divin- 
ers to  tell  what  shall  become  of  other  men.  Names,  days, 
conditions  of  salvation,  Christ,  Bible,  atonement,  are  the 
magical  formulas  of  a  systematized  Christianity  ;  and, 
when  used  for  the  purpose  just  mentioned,  are  neither 
better  nor  worse  than  the  divinations  drawn  from  arrows 
by  Hebrew  seers,  or  written  on  Chaldean  scrolls,  or  buried 
with  the  dead  in  Egypt,  or  sold  by  Buddhist  priests  in  the 
streets  of  Canton. 

1  Fabricius,  in  his  Bibliotkeca,  rebukes  the  superstition  of  supposing  that  man  can  divine 
the  future  by  natural  phenomena;  yet  he  would  substitute  a  divination  of  their  divine  purpose, 
after  ttte  event,  by  Christian  dogma  ! 


DIVINATION.  721 

It  is  curious  to  note  how  the  instinct  of  cosmical  poten- 
cies survives  in  the  midst  of  a  scientific  age  for  TheFung- 
those  whom  science  has  not  reached,  and  even  for 
those  who  desire  to  know  what  science  cannot 
tell.  Horoscopes  of  the  Presidents  of  the  United  States, 
and  of  German  statesmen,  have  lately  brought  gains  to 
the  astrologers  ;  though  every  schoolboy  knows  that  the 
names  of  the  planets  are  arbitrary,  and  their  influence  on 
human  life  null.  The  prevalence  of  such  superstitions  is 
hardly  a  test  of  the  amount  of  real  intelligence  in  a  coun- 
try, since  they  are  largely  matters  of  instinct  and  even 
amusement,  and  not  more  incompatible  than  any  weak  or 
absurd  traditional  creed  with  much  better  knowledge. 

The  most  ignoble  form  these  instincts  can  take  is  that 
of   the   fear   of   demonic   powers.1     The  Chinese  Chinese 
shin  are  less  mischievous  than  the  Christian  Satan,  Christian 
because  even  the  evil  element  in  that  fraternity  is  Satan. 
pulverized  into  a  host  of  individuals,  instead  of  being  con- 
centrated into  one  vast  purpose  of  essential  malice  ;  and 
these  are,  moreover,  treated  as  dependent  on  man,  rather 
than  superior  to  him.     The  curiosity  of  this  shrewd  and 
penetrative  people  is  so  much  stronger  than  their  fears, 
that  divination  has  a  peculiar  charm,  —  as  children  play  at 
hide-and-seek  in  old  lumber  rooms.     The  diviner  Magic  as 
was  the  adjutant  of  the  early  kings  and  heroes,  and 
nothing  could  be  done  without  him.     The  calendar-  time, 
maker  was  the  first  historian.     Marco  Polo  says  that  thou- 
sands of  fortune-tellers  were  supported  at  the  great  city  of 
Cambalu;2  and  this  may  well  be  believed,  to  judge  from 
their  reported  numbers  in  the  streets  of  modern  Peking. 
Yet  so  great  is  the  discredit  attached  to  evoking  the  dead, 
or  to  magical  incantations,  that  they  are  incessantly  for- 
bidden by  edict  as  well  as  by  statute  law  :  they  are  wholly 

1  The  old  Chaldeans  had  their  Bible  of  the   "Evil  Spirits;"  described  by  Lenormant 
from  the  tablets. 

*  M.  Polo,  Bohn's  edition,  p.  232. 

46 


a  passion 
pas- 


722  BELIEFS. 

renounced  by  the  better  class  of  minds,1  and  are  much 
less  common  with  the  people  than  the  comparatively  inno- 
cent casting  of  lots  and  divining  by  letters,  cards,  bamboo 
sticks,  and  dreams.  To  superstitions  of  times  and  seasons 
the  Chinese  are  not  more  addicted  than  other  races  :  they 
have  had  no  astrological  predictions  so  minute  as  those  of 
Nostradamus  and  others  in  mediaeval  Europe ;  the  num- 
ber of  days  marked  as  lucky  or  unlucky  in  the  popular 
faith  of  the  English  of  the  seventeenth  and  even  eight- 
eenth centuries  is  fully  as  great  as  in  any  of  the  Chinese 
almanacs.2 

Our  review  of  Chinese  augury  has  so  strongly  suggested 
Transition  rationalistic  and  unitary  conceptions  on  the  lower 
to  Theism.  pianes  of  m'm^  that  it  leads  naturally  to  the  subject 
of  Chinese  Theism.  The  changes  undergone  by  this  ele- 
ment under  the  slow  influence  of  such  conceptions  have 
been  intimated  in  our  account  of  ancestral  rites,  of  ani- 
mism, of  polytheistic  and  pantheistic  forces  in  the  popular 
faith,  and  even  of  fung-shui  and  divination.  In  all  these  the 
tendency  to  substitute  notions  of  inherent  natural  law  for 
volition  and  caprice  is  very  manifest.  Of  the  highest  form 
of  divining,  that  of  perceiving  the  divine  through  spiritual 
affinity,  the  philosopher  has  somewhat  to  say.  "  If  you  dis- 
solve the  connection  between  the  intellect  of  man  and  the 
divination  of  Deity,"  says  Maximus  Tyrius,  "you  dissolve 
the  most  musical  of  harmonies.4'  3 

1  Meadows,  Chinese  Rebellions,  p.  383. 

2  See  Articles  by  Dennys  on  "  Folk  Lore  of  China,"  in  Chin.  Rev.     It  is  curious  that  be- 
lief in  the  inauspiciousness  of  the  seventh  day  for  work  is  introduced  into  Chinese  calendars 
by  Indian  astronomers. 

»  Max.  Tyr.  I.  32. 


THEISM.  723 


THEISM. 

NOTWITHSTANDING  the  long  list  of  authorities  for  the 
"  atheism  "  of  the  Chinese,  from  the  Jesuit  Father  ^ 
Longobardi  to  the  recent  "  Edinburgh  Reviewer,"  an  inteiii- 
who  describes  them  as  "  having  a  language  without  f™^™" 
a.n  alphabet  and  a  religion  without  a  God,"  —  a  list  the  SHI 
including  such  names  as  Leibnitz,  Bayle,  Constant,  and 
Pauthier,  Quinet,  Abel  R^musat,  and  Barthelemy  Saint- 
Hilaire,  —  nothing  can  be  now  more  palpable  than  that  the 
Shang-te,  or  Te  (Supreme  Ruler),1  of  the  ancient  Classics  is 
represented  as  an  intelligent  Providence-,  hearing  the  pray- 
ers and  knowing  the  hearts  of  men.  Chinese  hymns  differ 
from  those  of  the  Hebrews  and  Egyptians  in  not  dwelling 
emotionally  on  poetic  images  and  symbols  of  the  God,  but 
bringing  him  into  direct  relation  with  homely  life  and  pub- 
lic interests  in  the  simplest  way.  Yet  the  Shi-king  gives 
him  an  almost  Hebrew  personality,  as  surveying  the  world, 
seeking  out  men  for  rulers,  giving  counsels  to  King  Wan, 
and  praising  his  virtues.  He  smells  the  sweet  savor  of 
sacrifice ;  he  is  looked  to  for  aid  in  trouble,  makes  and 
unmakes  kings,  is  the  bright  and  glorious  God.  The 
mother  of  the  Tcheou  becomes  pregnant  by  treading  in  his 
footprint,  and  by  his  blessing  has  painless  deliverance.  All 
the  good  kings  adore  him,  and  after  death  sit  at  his  right 
hand.  Almighty,  he  hates  no  one.  He  is  the  spirit  of 
Tien  (Heaven),  the  source  of  morality,  of  just  retribution, 
and  of  all  earthly  blessings. 

In  the  Shu  it  is  the  same.     He  lends  righteousness  to 

1  Naturally  enough,  this  name  is  given  to  rulers  in  lower  spheres  also.  Thus  there  arose  a 
kind  of  service  of  "  the  five  Tes ; "  by  some  supposed  to  represent  the  earliest  kings,  but 
more  probably  designating  cosmogonic  Rulers.  This  cult  fell  into  discredit,  and  was  abolished 
as  interfering  with  the  respect  due  the  Emperor.  (See  Medhurst,  Ch.  Repos.  1848,  pp.  185- 
187.)  The  Tao  sect  have  a  multitude  of  Tes.  But  the  meaning  of  Sharg-te  is  as  perfectly 
understood  to  be  Deity,  as  any  anthropomorphic  word  in  any  religion  of  the  world. 


724  BELIEFS. 

the  people.  To  him  Shun  brings  offerings,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  lower  genii  of  hills  and  rivers.  He  has 
given  man  a  moral  sense ;  is  offended  with  Kwan,  and 
chooses  to  reveal  the  "  Great  Plan "  to  Yu.  Tang  con- 
fesses his  sins  to  the  heart  of  Shang-te.  Every  thing  im- 
plies his  dealing  with  men  and  things  in  detail.  In  these 
ways  the  Shu  names  him  thirty-eight  times.  The  Chung- 
yung  says  the  ancients  served  him  with  sacrifices  to  Heaven 
and  Earth.  Confucius  and  Mencius  seldom  use  the  term 
Shang-te,  but  prefer  to  speak  of  Tien  (Heaven)  in  the  same 
way.1 

The  next  important  fact  about  the  older  Classics  is  that 
Heaven  they  make  Tien  (called  often  "  azure,"  distant,  and 
Change-  *n  otner  ways  identified  with  the  sky)  interchange- 
able with  able  with  Shang-te.  Tien  is  "  compassionate ;  the 
biSiM  parent  of  men  ;  unwearied  with  blessing."  It  is 
periods.  «  clear-seeing,  intelligent,  and  dwells  with  men  in 
all  their  doings."  "  By  its  will  it  inspects  kingdoms  and 
makes  no  mistakes :  it  is  offended  at  wrong-doing  ;  is 
invoked  against  injustice,  implored  for  pity,  even  expostu- 
lated with  as  unkind."  It  is  described  as  "  letting  down  its 
net  of  penalty,  as  making  no  appeal  to  the  sense  of  sound 
or  of  smell."  So  far  the  Shi.  In  the  Shu  it  is  mentioned 
in  the  same  way  one  hundred  and  thirty-four  times  ;  among 
these  as  "loving  the  reverent,  and  as  seeing  with  the 
people's  eyes." 

The  Y-king  says  that  the  wise  man  follows  the  great 
commandments  of  Tien.2  Confucius  says :  "  Tien  knows 
me."  "  He  who  offends  against  Tien  has  none  to  whom 
he  can  pray."  '4  Integrity  is  the  way  (tao)  of  Tien."3 
Mencius  says  :  "  Tien  exercises  men  with  trials ;  holds  in 
its  hands  the  issues  of  things ;  determines  men's  lot  accord- 

1  Medhurst's  elaborate  articles  in  the  Chin.  Repos.,  for  1848,  seek  to  prove,  by  exhaustive 
quotations,  that  Shang-te  is  the  Chinese  Ruler  of  Tien. 

*  Ch.  xiv.  s  Lunyu,  XIV.  37  ;  III.  13  ;    Chungyung,  XX.  18. 


THEISM.  725 

ing  to  their  conduct."  "  To  delight  in  Tien  is  to  love  and 
serve  all  men."  1  At  the  present  day,  very  common  expres- 
sions are,  "  Great  Tien,  help  us  !  "  and,  "  Great  Te,  deliver 
us!"2 

The  later  philosophy  identifies  Tien,  Shang-te,  and  Li, 
the  order  of  Nature. 

The  providential  and  moral  meaning  conveyed  in  Shang- 
te  and  Tien  as  interchangeable  terms,  and  the  dis-  si  so{ 
tinction  always  made  between  these  on  the  one  theistic 
hand  as  unity,  and  the  multiplicity  of  the  shin  on 
the  other,  are  clear  evidences  of  a  personal  and  anthropo- 
morphic theism.  And  this  is  confirmed  by  the  tendencies 
to  unitary  views  of  the  cosmos,  which  have  been  already 
traced  in  lower  forms  of  popular  belief;  and  by  theistic 
affinities,  more  or  less  probable,  recently  brought  out  by 
Miiller  and  others,  with  this  Chinese  Tien,  in  the  names  of 
supreme  deities  in  the  religions  of  most  Mongolian  and 
Turanic  races.3  Marco  Polo  saw  the  name  of  a  Supreme 
God  on  the  Tartar  tablets  and  temples,  and  describes  his 
worship.4  Rubruquis  was  told  by  the  Tartars  that  they 
"  believed  in  one  God,  and  he  a  '  sprite  ; '  and  the  images 
they  made  were  not  of  him,  but  of  men,  and  for  their 
memory." 5  Bastian  says :  "  The  Mongols  believe  in 
one  God ;  not  the  blue  sky,  but  the  everlasting  Heaven."  6 
The  Tunguse,  according  to  Erman,  "  worship  a  god, 
Hanki." "  Castren  has  shown  not  only  a  theistic  element 
in  all  the  old  Altaic  religions,  but  the  curious  fact,  in  view 
of  the  relations  of  Shang-te  and  Tien,  that  in  each  of 
these  religions  God  and  Heaven  are  expressed  by  the  same 
word.8 

That  the  Jesuits,  who  were  the  only  members  of   the 

1  Mencius,  VI.  n.  15;   I.  n.  16;   Ibid.,  3. 

2  Chinese  Refos.  1845. 

3  Muller,  Tories,  ub.  Relig.  Wiss.  177-182.  «  Bohn's  ed.  II.  26. 
6  Hakluyt,  Vol.  I.  127,  128.              •  Peking,  p.  370.  T  Siberia. 

8  Finnische  Mythol.  pp.  15,  24. 


726  BELIEFS. 

Church  in  their  day  acquainted  with  the  facts,  should, 
Yet  the  with  one  exception,  have  maintained  that  the  Chi- 
ariaom-  nese  worshipped  a  personal  God,  is  as  natural  as 
not  find  a  that  the  Church  in  its  supreme  ignorance  should 
word^  'have  decided  against  them.  The  great  contro- 
answering  versy  of  those  days  as  to  whether  Tien  meant 
of  the  the  visible  sky,  and  whether  the 'Chinese  were  not 
materialists,  has  yielded  in  the  main  to  a  different 
one,  which  agitates  the  Protestant  churches  at  the  present 
day  as  much  as  those  difficulties  troubled  the  Catholics. 
The  problem  of  the  modern  missionary  is  how  to  get  the 
God  of  the  Christian  and  Hebrew  Scriptures  into  Chi- 
nese speech.  Is  Shin,  Shang-te,  or  Tien-chu  (Lord  of 
Heaven)  most  suitable  to  convey  the  idea  of  "  the  Bible 
Jehovah  ? "  l 

The  difficulties  of  this  question  beset  the  projectors  of  a 
translation  of  the  Bible  on  every  side.  One  way  (Shin) 
are  the  breakers  of  pantheism  ;  the  other  way  (Tien)  the 
gulfs  of  materialism.  It  has  caused  hopeless  division  in 
the  Bible  societies,  and,  as  far  as  I  know,  the  solution  is  as 
remote  as  ever.  And  this  obviously  for  the  best  of  reasons. 
While  the  question,  "  Who  is  God  in  China  ? "  seems  to 
have  been  at  last  quite  clearly  settled  in  favor  of  Shang-te,2 
the  practical  difficulty  is,  after  all,  that  neither  name  suits 
the  Christian  conception,  nor  conveys  it  to  the  Chinese 
mind.  We  may  go  further,  and  add  that,  by  admission  of 
the  leading  advocates  on  both  sides,2  the  Chinese  language 
has  no  word  capable  of  rendering  the  service  required 
for  the  "  Bible  God."  Still  less  has  it  a  fit  term  for  the 
Triune  Deity  of  the  missionary  creed.  Dr.  Boone  even 
rejoiced  in  this  fact  as  a  special  point  in  favor  of  Chris- 

1  See  Chin.  Repos.  for  1848,  the  writings  of  Drs.  Boone,  Medhurst,  and  Malan  ;  and  the 
A  mer.  Orient.  Journ.  for  October,  1868. 

2  Boone,  Chin.  Rep.  as  above,  pp.  58,  59 ;  Medhurst,  pp.  109,  583.     Later  phases  of  the 
controversy  are  summed  up  in  two  papers,  by  Hoppner  and  Martin,  before   the  American 
Oriental  Society  (October,  1868),  and  in  another  by  Woolsey  (1867). 


THEISM.  727 

tianity  ;  as  showing  that  "  God's  providence  has  reserved 
to  his  servants  the  part  of  introducing  "  this  meaning 
into  "  the  heathen  term  Shin''  How,  indeed,  should 
there  have  been  any  need  of  the  missionary  at  all,  if  the 
Chinese  language  proved  these  people  already  acquainted 
with  this  "  only  true  God  "  ?  But  what  if  the  real  point 
lies  in  the  unfitness  of  this  Go'd  himself  to  enter  and  take 
hold  of  the  Chinese  mind  ? 

In  fact,  this  is  the  necessity  of  failure  inherent  in  the 
missionary  purpose.  Milne  tried  eighteen  combinations  of 
Tien,  Shang-te,  Shin,  Hwang,  Chin,  and  Chu,  and  Morison 
four,  without  success.  Visdelou  says  in  despair,  "  If  we 
translate  shin  by  spirit,  it  is  inadequate  ;  if  by  God,  we  go 
too  far."  Hardest  lot  of  all,  the  advocate  of  Shang-te  is 
dealt  with  by  critics  for  misleading  the  Chinese  into  the 
idea  that  they  have  already  in  their  own  religion  the  same 
Deity  with  the  Christians.1  Yet  how  can  they  be  expected 
to  accept  a  name  for  a  deity  of  whom  they  have  never 
heard  ?  These  difficulties  would  seem  to  be  insuperable 
indeed. 

The  interchangeableness  of  Shang-te  with  Tien  in  the 
old  Classics  is  borne  out  by  the  association  of  his  Meaning  of 
edicts  with  the  seasons  and  the  general  order  of  the  identity 

i*    «  of  Shang-te 

Nature.  All  positive  religions  show  the  tendency  to  with  Tien; 
make  cosmical  nature  the  manifestation  of  Divine  its  origin 

not  in  ma- 

will.     But   the  peculiar  habit  of  Chinese   thought 


intensified    this   tendency.     It  does    not    conceive  ^t^hab- 
essence   apart   from    manifestation,  nor   the   ideal  »tsof 
from    the   concrete.     And    thus   while   the   moral  * 
emphasis  so  conspicuous  in   the  old  theistic  conceptions 
forbids  us  to  regard  them  as  mere  personifications  of  the 
material  heavens,  it  is  unmistakable  that  in  a  very  prac- 
tical sense  God  was  Nature,  and  Nature  was  God.     The 
shin  are  expansive  and  contractive  forces  in  Nature,  and 

1  Chin.  Repos.  1848,  pp.  459-461. 


728  BELIEFS. 

Shang-te  himself  is  shin  (spirit).  The  dictionaries  describe 
shin  as  the  inscrutable  principle  in  Nature  ;  which  at  once 
identifies  the  word  with  Deity.  The  sharp  distinction 
drawn  by  Christian  supernaturalism  between  God  and 
Nature,  therefore,  cannot  be  said  to  exist  for  the  Chinese. 
Even  the  most  strenuous  advocates  for  the  personality  of 
Shang-te  do  not  find  in  him  the  "  Bible,  attributes  "  of  ex- 
ternal creative  power,  and  self-existence  apart  from  time. 
His  character  as  shin  makes  him  a  source  of  emanations. 
"Things  spring  from  him,  as  men  from  parents."  It  is 
evidently  an  entire  mistake,  however,  to  call  the  unity  of 
God  and  Nature  materialism,  rather  than  spiritualism  ;  the 
universe  is  alive  with  moral  law  and  spiritual  intent,  just 
as  these  on  the  other  hand  are  inevitably  manifested  in 
natural  forms  and  cosmical  relations. 

This  naturalistic  belief  may  be  conceived  in  two  forms. 
In  the  first,  the  One  Deity,  with  his  subordinate  principles 
and  forces,  becomes  but  a  common  term  for  the  arbitrary 
caprices  which  a  crude  religious  sense  affirms  in  Nature. 
In  the  second,  He  is  identified  with  the  regular  and  uni- 
form processes  observed  by  a  positive  habit  of  mind,  intent 
on  industrial  and  social  uses ;  and  thus  becomes  the  sub- 
stance of  permanent  law  and  life,  cleared  of  capricious 
interferences  with  the  course  of  Nature  in  proportion  to  the 
growth  of  such  practical  intelligence.  This  latter  form  is 
plainly  that  which  is  presented  in  Chinese  civilization.  In 
the  evolution  of  this  tendency  is  the  key  of  its  intellectual 
and  religious  phases. 

As  in  such  a  movement  the  idea  of  personal  will  natu- 
rally recedes  before  the  growing  ideas  of  principles 

Itsevolu-  J  r  i 

tion.  su-  and  laws,  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  Confucius 
pernatu-  an(j  Mencius  inclined  to  abandon  the  apparent 

raJism 

gradually     supernaturalism  of  the  older  books,  and  to  substi- 
tute the  name  Tien  (Heaven)  for  Shang-te.    A  sim- 
ilar disposition  is  found  in  Western  races,  in  proportion  as 


THEISM.  729 

the  scientific  element  supplants  the  traditions  of  supernat- 
ural will. 

The  later  philosophy  of  Chu-hi,  the  high-water  mark  of 
Chinese  thought,  shows  the  full  triumph  of  this  tendency. 
"  Shang-te,"  says  Chu-hi  plainly,  "is  Law."  Chu-hi  iden- 
tifies Te,  Tien,  and  Li,  the  principle  of  order  in  Nature  ; 
the  former  words  "  meaning  that  Li  is  master."  a  He  says 
of  theophanies  similar  to  those  of  the  Old  Testament,  that 
"  if  men  can  have  visits  from  Shang-te,  he  can  hardly  be 
the  incorporeal  being  he  is  represented."  "  Shin,"  says 
his  disciple,  "  has  consciousness,  and  can  operate  all  ;  but 
Law  embraces  a  great  many  principles  higher  than  the 
consciousness  of  Shin,  or  its  universal  operation."  2 

The  difference  of   this  tendency  from  that  of   the  She- 
mitic  and  Christian  Bibles  is  obvious.    As  they  are  Contrasts 
supernaturalism,  so  this   is   naturalism.     As  their  with  she- 
moral  and  spiritual  ideal  is  a  Being  separated  from 


the  universe,  so  for  this  the  universe  itself  is  the  ideaL 
very  presence  of  the  ideal,  the  activity  of  its  law.  As  they 
are  anthropomorphic,  so  this  is  pantheistic.  That  there  are 
analogies  as  well  as  differences,  lines  that  run  together, 
common  insights  and  common  superstitions,  is  equally 
manifest^;  nor  can  any  of  our  terms  quite  state  the  special 
distinctions  between  the  consciousness  of  the  Mongol  and 
the  Shemito-Aryan.  But  as  these  distinctive  qualities  run 
through  the  whole  of  Chinese  thought,  no  word  known 
thereto,  or  likely  to  be  .known,  can  possibly  be  endowed 
with  the  qualities  of  the  God  of  Abraham,  or  of  the  God 
of  Jesus  and  'Paul  ;  still  less  with  those  of  the  God  of  the 
Christian  Church  and  dogma. 

The  Chinese  idea  of  the  cosmos  does  not  allow  special 
revelations  in  the  sense  of  the  term  as  used  in  these  latter 
faiths  ;  since  the  will  of  Shang-te  is  simply  the  order  of 

1  Chin.  Rep.  1848,  pp.  34,  41. 

2  See  Chalmers,  in  China  Review,  May  and  June,  1875. 


73O  BELIEFS. 

Nature  and  the  moral  law.  "Heaven,"  says  Mencius, 
"  does  not  speak  ;  it  makes  itself  known  only  through  the 
course  of  events."  No  special  Holy  Book  miraculously 
given  and  preserved  is  possible ;  only  the  Book  of  Nature, 
whether  expressed  in  signs  and  symbolic  characters,  or  in 
obvious  processes,  open  to  all ;  its  order  interwoven  every 
way  with  the  conduct  and  condition  of  man.  Its  laws  are 
interpreted  as  dependencies  on  a  morality  at  once  human 
and  universal,  the  motive  force  of  the  conscience  and  the 
cosmos  alike  ;  and  all  afflictive  phenomena  are  warnings 
to  the  State,  not  by  sudden  wrath  of  God,  but  by  inherent 
working  of  relations. 

No  vicarious  divine  atonement  can  here  be  invented  to 
satisfy  a  law  which  acts,  and  must  act,  immediately  in  the 
nature  of  men ;  and  even  the  Emperor,  who  as  represent- 
ative of  the  people  assumes  the  blame' for  their  sufferings, 
does  so  not  as  the  innocent  suffering  for  the  guilty,  but  as 
himself  a  real  offender.  "  Organic  involuntary  sin,"  "  im- 
puted transgression,"  "natural  hate  of  God's  law,"  —  a 
belief  to  which  the  evangelical  still  clings  as  the  main 
dependence  for  Christian  virtue,  culture,  and  even  intel- 
lectual resource,  —  for  similar  reasons  can  have  no  place 
in  these  religious  ethics.  9 

Thus  the  rational  science  and  practical  sense  of  our 
Affinities  time  finds  itself  on  better  terms  with  Chinese 
tionai"1"  tlieism  tnan  witn  tne  theological  creeds.  Here  are 
science,  germs  of  its  own  cherished  principles,  that  being 
is  not  to  be  conceived  apart  from  manifestation  ;  that,  in 
other  words,  the  reality  of  all  Life  and  Law  is  in  their 
operation  ;  that  the  universe,  as  totality  of  living  powers, 
cannot  be  outside  the  Essential  Force  of  them  all ;  that 
the  cosmos,  as  infinite,  must  be  one  with  its  divine  sub- 
stance,—  unless  there  are  two  infinites,  which  is  self-con- 
tradictory and  impossible.  However  inapt  Chinese  think- 
ing may  be  at  dealing  with  the  idea  of  infinity,  its  habit 


THEISM.  731 

of  realizing  ideas  through  their  concrete  expressions  is 
obviously  akin  to  the  scientific  notion  of  law;  and  its 
religious  belief  that  the  moral  order  underlies  the  phys- 
ical as  its  substance,  however  inscrutably  to  the  im- 
perfect sight  of  the  human  observer,  —  is  in  full  harmony 
with  our  present  aims  at  the  conciliation  of  science  and 
religion. 

This  is  genuine  theism,  not  atheism.     The  order  of  the 
world,  as  thus  conceived,  involves  intelligence ;  not  cosmic 
indeed  that  of  an  external  Cause,  nor  yet  of  a  Per-  theism 
son,  in  the  sense  of  individual  agent ;  yet  such  Intelligence 
as  can  be  identified  with  unchangeable  relations  given  in 
thought,  and  is  itself  an  all-containing  Unity. 

The  tendency  towards  dispensing  with  anthropomorphic 
conceptions  now  described  must  always  react  on  Emotional 
the  tone  of  the  emotions  and  aspirations,  which  in  tendencies 

of  anthro- 

more  imaginative  races  are  found  to  borrow  inten-  pomor- 
sity  from  the  human  qualities  of  their  religious  phlsm' 
ideal.  The  incitement  of  personal  relations  must  here  be 
wanting  to  the  culture  of  sentiment  as  well  as  of  individ- 
uality. A  distinctly  individual  God  is  simply  private  Will 
and  Purpose  grown  into  an  all-mastering  ideal.  Com- 
munion with  such  a  God,  human  in  every  thing  but  the 
colossal  proportions  of  his  traits,  must  stimulate  intense 
fears,  desires,  and  expectations,  imperious  motives,  selfish 
or  unselfish,  and  that  sense  of  being  inspired  or  controlled 
by  Divine  intentions,  which  may  be  fitted  either  to  ex- 
alt or  to  enslave.  Hence  the  variety  of  ethical  quality  in 
the  resultant  creeds  and  institutions  of  distinctly  anthro- 
pomorphic religions.  And  hence  their  hostility  to  scientific 
progress  ;  which  shows  how  naturally  they  resist  all  inter- 
ference with  the  arbitrariness  of  will  inherent  in  their  indi- 
vidualized God. 

Here  are  at  once  emotional  advantages  and  intellectual 


732  BELIEFS. 

and  moral  defects,  from  both  of  which  it  might  seem 
Higher  that  the  cosmical  theism  which  recognizes  Deity 
fnTosnlicaT  onty  *n  tne  OY^QT  °^  nature  and  man,  instead  of 
theism.  placing  it  outside  as  a  humanly  constructive  agent, 
would  be  wholly  exempt.  As  matter  of  fact,  however,  we 
must  observe  that  such  cosmical  theism  covers  a  whole  line 
of  development  which  has  many  phases.  The  universe  of 
law  is  impersonal  only  as  more  comprehensive  and  more 
vital  than  individuals  ;  its  sublimities,  harmonies,  and  uni- 
ties are  the  fountains  of  profoundest  enthusiasm  and  trust. 
These  results  are  conspicuous  at  the  summit  of  culture; 
while  at  its  beginning  many  of  the  mysteries  of  Nature 
oppress  the  soul  with  terror  all  the  more  from  their  being 
identified  with  a  Divine  power.  What  we  call  cosmical 
theism  is  thus  in  its  different  phases  the  lowest  and  the 
highest  religion.  The  intelligence  of  the  Chinese  places 
them  in  the  higher  grades  of  this  series.  Their  lack  of 
ardor  and  of  emotional  sentiment  is  a  matter  of  tempera- 
Chinese  ment  more  than  a  result  of  impersonal  conceptions 
sentiment  of  Deity.  Within  those  lines  of  relation  in  which 
byte  con-  their  traditional  currents  run,  they  are  lacking 
sciousness  neither  in  tenderness,  loyalty,  nor  emotionality. 
The  perpetual  consciousness  of  regular  methods 
and  unchanging  paths  curbs  at  once  their  caprices  and 
their  fears.  No  passionate  aspiration  for  union  with  a 
separate  God  across  the  fathomless  gulfs  between  finite 
and  infinite  on  the  one  hand  ;  and  no  enfeebling  sense  of 
an  outer  darkness  of  penalty,  inflicted  by  Divine  wrath  for 
deadly  though  unconscious  sin,  on  the  other. 

The  ethical  power  inherent  in  a  worship  of  Divine  laws 
its  ethical  in  the  order  of  nature  and  life  gives  to  Chinese 
Mdg'uar-  virtue  a  peculiarly  dignified  and  home-born  grace, 
antees.  The  guarantees  of  right  are  in  no  arbitrary  will, 
but  in  this  eternal  order,  without  beginning  as  without  end  ; 
the  nature  of  things. 


THEISM.  733 

That  the  iteration  of  moral  precepts,  sure  to  weaken  the 
proper  force  of  virtue,  has  not  made  this  people  on  the 
whole  less  conscientious  than  others,  nor  prevented  their 
illustrating  integrity  and  self-sacrifice  on  as  large  a  scale  in 
every  age  as  these  traits  occupy  anywhere  else  in  civilized 
States,  is  certainly  proof  of  some  compensating  energy  in 
the  moral  sense,  some  counteracting  efficacy  in  its  religious 
sanctions.  And  this  must  be  found  in  the  closeness  of  re- 
lation recognized  as  existing  between  the  laws  regulating 
the  cosmical  and  human  worlds  ;  in  the  mental  habit  which 
entertains  ideas  only  in  the  form  of  actualities,  sees  prin- 
ciples by  means  of  their  practice,  and  makes  no  distinction 
between  religion  and  life. 


II. 

BUDDHISM. 


THE     COMING    OF     BUDDHISM, 


CAUSES    OF    ITS    GROWTH    IN   CHINA. 

TN  view  of  the  data  presented  in  the  preceding  sections, 
•*•   the  mere  fact  that  a  foreign  system  of  belief  Apparent 
should  have  taken  root  in  Chinese  soil  and  become  unsuit- 

.  ,  ...  ablenessof 

a  popular  faith  is  a  phenomenon  of  peculiar  inter-  chinafor 
est  to  the  student  of  religions.  The  thoroughly  Buddhism- 
Hindu  system  of  Buddhism  seems  to  stand  at  the  opposite 
pole  from  all  distinctive  traits  of  Chinese  thought.  The 
social  conditions  of  which  it  was  the  outgrowth,  and  the 
beliefs  from  which  it  was  a  refuge,  were  alike  unknown  to 
these  open-eyed  and  busy  children  of  a  work-day  world.  The 
Chinese  were  not  made  weary  of  life  by  mental  passivity, 
nor  stirred  to  religious  revolution  by  the  pressure  of  caste. 
They  were  not  impelled  towards  Nirvana  by  longing  to 
escape  the  endless  chain  of  transmigration,  the  dreary 
climbing  and  descent  along  the  fated  scale  of  existence 
from  the  angel  to  the  stone.1  The  dream-land  of  contem- 
plative imagination  was  as  remote  from  their  concrete  brains 
as  the  lawless  fancy  that  ran  riot  in  miracle  and  metamor- 
phosis. How  sober  and  practical  their  ancient  books  of  his- 
tory and  song!  How  simple  and  domestic  their  ancestral 
world  !  How  loyal  to  Nature  the  spirits  of  earth  and 

1  The  old  native  tribes  of  China  show  no  sign  of  the  metempsychosis,  nor  of  the  hells  of 
Buddhism.     The  Hakkas  ridicule  its  Paradise.     (Eitel,  Notes  and  Queries,  I.  No.  12.) 

47 


738  BELIEFS. 

heaven  !  How  real  the  relations  of  religion  with  govern- 
ment and  social  order  !  What  had  a  trenchant  logic  of 
negation,  a  destructive  analysis  of  the  actual,  whether  of 
traditions,  institutions,  or  phenomena,  an  infinite  mathe- 
matics of  unseen  penalties,  potencies,  and  mysteries,  to  do 
with  these  positive  architects  of  this  world  and  their  shrewd 
and  patient  toils  ? 

Religious  celibacy  and  mendicancy  among  a  people 
who  knew  nothing  so  discreditable  as  to  be  childless,  and 
did  nothing  else  so  successfully  as  they  multiplied  their 
breed,  except  supporting  themselves  by  the  honest  indus- 
try which  was  their  religion  !  Separation  from  the  world 
within  cloisters,  and  under  incessant  religious  rituals  and 
routines  ! 

It  has  been  supposed  that  the  strange  creed  was  accepted 
.  as  a  relief  from  the  "negativity  of  rationalism/* 

Its  growth  J 

not  owing  But  this  cannot  be  admitted.  Chinese  rationalism 
•"ne'Ativ  was  verv  positive,  and  believed  very  much  in  na- 
ityofra-  lure,  in  morality,  in  the  sanctities  of  human  rela- 
tions>  and  in  the  presence  of  a  Divine  life  in  the 
universe  and  a  spirit-world  in  the  heart.  Moreover, 
all  the  traits  of  Buddhism  we  have  mentioned  have 
been  continually  denounced  by  emperors,  sages,  and  lead- 
ing philosophers.  Its  relic-worship  was  satirized  by  min- 
isters and  statesmen,  who  struggled  age  after  age  against 
such  superstitions,  whether  in  Buddhists,  Nestorians,  or 
Roman  priests.1  Even  Chinese  tolerance  again  and  again 
National  vielded  to  the  sense  of  danger  from  this  subversive 
testimonies  faith.  In  the  sixth  century,  the  Buddhist  and  Tao- 
;tlt>  sse  beliefs  were  dealt  with  as  politically  mischiev- 
ous, and  their  books  burned.  Three  centuries  later,  religious 
orders  were  forbidden  to  young  persons  without  consent  of 
parents,  and  the  entrance  of  novices  put  under  a  supervis- 
ion which  is  still  maintained.  The  Buddhist  monasteries 

1  See  Beal's  Introd.  to  Budd.  Pilgrims. 


COMING    OF    BUDDHISM.  739 

were  secularized  or  destroyed  in  large  numbers,  and  the 
monks  driven  back  into  social  industries.1  In  the  fifteenth 
century,  the  right  of  monasteries  to  hold  real  estate  was 
limited,  and  all  excess  given  to  the  poor.  The  Sacred  Edict 
cautions  the  people  against  Buddhist  legends  and  delusions  ; 
denounces  the  mythology  of  the  sect  about  future  retribu- 
tion, and  reproves  the  drone  lives  of  its  disciples.  Buddhism 
was  violently  assailed  at  the  beginning  of  the  Ming  as  per- 
verting the  people.2  The  actual  laws,  which  are  poorly 
executed  where  they  conflict  with  popular  opinions,  yet  deal 
with  the  monks  as  persons  who  have  withdrawn  from  social 
duties,  hold  them  under  special  regulations,  and  treat  them 
as  an  inferior  class,  subject  to  severer  penalties  than  the 
laity.3  On  the  whole,  the  class  is  described  as  ignorant, 
low,  and  little  esteemed  ;  4  though  this  cannot  be  true  of  the 
history  of  the  Chinese  Buddhists  as  a  whole. 

Nevertheless,  the  doctrine  was  far  more  successfully 
propagated  in  China  than  in  its  native  land,  whence  Less 
it  was  driven  forth  to  find  a  welcome  in  the  appar-  readily  ex- 
ently  unsympathetic  tribes  of  the  North.  Miracle  thlTthe 
has  been  resorted  to  as  the  only  explanation  of  the  exPansion 
wonderful  extension  of  Christianity  in  a  hostile  cbteL- 
world.  But  Christianity  followed  the  tendencies  ity' 
of  Aryan  thought,  and  adapted  itself  to  the  popular  and  phi- 
losophic demands  of  its  age,  even  while  its  symbolic  books 
were  based  on  the  old  Hebrew  Scriptures.  Buddhism 
struck  its  taproot  in  a  soil  as  unpropitious  as  can  well  be 
conceived.  It  was  imported  bodily  in  a  ready-made  litera- 
ture of  its  own,  which  had  to  be  transported  over  vast 
mountain  ranges,  and  translated  into  a  tongue  which  had 
no  expressions  for  many  of  its  terms,  and  no  response  for 
much  of  its  substance.  It  had  apparently  not  a  shred  of 

1  See  Bazin,  Journ.  Asiat.,  1856,  p.  135.  2  Wylie,  p.  134. 

8  See  Comm.  to  the  Penal  Code  ;  Bazin,  pp.  166-168  ;  Penal  Code,  CLXXVI. 

*  Lassen,  IV.  745. 


74O  BELIEFS. 

relation  to  the  ancient  Classics  or  the  later  teachers.  For 
two  hundred  years  after  its  first  preaching  in  China,  it 
produced  in  fact  but  little  effect.  Fifty  years  before  the 
recognized  date  of  its  acceptance,  its  books  had  met  with 
very  poor  reception.1  Hordes  in  Central  Asia  had  been 
converted  by  Hindu  missions  long  before  ;  and  the  faith 
was  fully  established  in  Kashmir  nearly  a  century  in  ad- 
vance of  its  reception  at  the  Chinese  court.  Its  exten- 
sion eastward  was  aided  by  the  sovereigns  of  that  kingdom, 
and  by  the  chiefs  of  the  Yuetschi  horde,  who  sent  books  to 
China  about  the  time  of  Christ.2  The  Chinese  have  always 
held  the  independent  mountain  region  of  Kashmir  in  great 
reverence,  like  all  other  Asiatic  races ;  they  have  believed 
in  the  longevity  of  its  chaste  people,  as  well  as  in  the  mys- 
terious powers  of  its  devotees.8  They  speak  of  it  as  the 
home  of  "  successors  of  Sakya-mouni,  whose  venerable 
aspects  recall  his  pictures."  4  This  was  the  wonder-land  to 
which,  according  to  Chinese  traditions,  the  Emperor  Ming-ti, 
following  his  dream  about  a  gigantic  statue  encircled  with 
light,  sent  messengers,  who  brought  to  China  the  first 
statue  of  Buddha  and  a  symbolic  white  horse,  A.D.  61. 
This  year  cannot  be  taken  as  the  date  of  the  entrance  of 
Buddhism  into  China,  which  was  very  gradually  effected, 
though  commencing  not  far  from  the  opening  of  the 
Christian  era. 

Mr.  Fergusson,  an  enthusiastic  student  of  Serpent-wor- 
Mr.  Fer-  sniP»  regards  this  primitive  agricultural  cult  as  the 
historical  germ  of  Buddhism.  He  traces  its  prev- 
alence  among  the  "  Turanic"  tribes  of  India,  Kash- 
mir>  anci  Thibet,  whose  rulers  figure  in  the  Hindu 
Serpent-  epics  and  Buddhist  records  as  Naga  (snake)  kings  ; 
worship.  anc[  he  even  goes  so  far  as  to  maintain  that  no  race 

1  Matouanlin.  2  Lassen,  II.  1074,  1080. 

3  Vie  de  Hiouen- Thsang,  p.  94 ;  Marco  Polo  (Bohn)  I.  xxviii. 

4  Chinese  accounts  of  Hulaku's   war  (Remusat,   Nouv.  Mel.   I.    179;  Dabistan,   I.   113, 
II.  147,  M8). 


COMING   OF    BUDDHISM.  741 

permanently  adopted  Buddhism,  which  had  not  previously 
been  serpent-worshippers.  Even  in  China  he  finds  traces 
of  this  wide-spread  deposit,  sufficient  to  indicate  the 
hitherto  unsuspected  point  of  attachment  for  Buddhist 
ideas.1  The  symbolic  meaning  of  the  dragon  in  Chinese 
history,  its  relations  to  the  elements  in  common  with  the 
Buddhist  serpent,  the  pictures  of  Buddhist  deities  crowned 
with  serpent  heads,  together  with  abundance  of  snake 
images  and  legends,  form  part  of  his  arguments  for  this 
apparently  overstrained  theory  of  the  origin  of  Buddhism. 
The  dragon-guardian  has  always  his  place  in  the  house  at 
the  foot  of  the  ancestral  altar,  and  is  installed  at  the  build- 
ing of  it.2  Live  snakes  are  still  carried  in  procession  in 
some  parts  of  China  for  luck,  in  honor  of  the  "  serpent- 
king,"  and  afterwards  turned  loose.3  •  In  China  as  well  as 
in  India,  serpents  are  the  genii  of  lakes,  caves,  and  the 
ground  in  general.  These  facts,  however,  simply  point  to 
the  primitive  veneration  of  agricultural  populations  for  the 
strange  creatures  whose  habitations  in  rocks  and  holes  they 
turn  up  and  supersede.  Upon  Mr.  Fergusson's  theory, 
such  survivals  should  not  appear  at  all ;  certainly  not  in 
connection  with  Buddhism  itself  after  so  many  centuries 
of  its  existence  :  since  he  regards  the  serpent-cult  as  pro- 
ducing it  only  by  way  of  reaction,  and  Buddhism  as  over- 
turning this  cult  and  substituting  asceticism  in  place  of  its 
coarser  superstitions. 

The  value    of    these  researches    is    unquestionable,    as 
yielding  illustrations  of  the  combined  forces  of  re- 
action  and   continuity   in   religious   development. 
The  transforming  effects   of   Buddhism  on  the  tribes  of 
India  and  Central  Asia  were  certainly  accomplished  in  part 

1  The  Chinese  use  their  term  for  dragon  (lung)  to  express  the  Sanscrit  word  Naga,  and 
regard  the  former  animal  as  a  snake  (Mayer's  Notes  and  Queries*  III.  3).  Fohi  had  a  serpent 
body.  The  Manchus  and  Mongols  divine  by  the  serpent  (Erman,  11.93).  See  also  Eitel's 
Handbook  of  Chinese  Buddhism. 

*  Eitel  (N.  andQ.  III.  3).  8  Chin.  Recorder^  April,  1872. 


742  BELIEFS. 

through  its  points  of  attachment  with  their  agricultural  and 
other  traditions.1  Though  serpent-worship  is  too  widely 
spread  a  form  of  primitive  religion  to  serve  as  a  solution 
of  the  peculiar  difficulties  we  encounter  in  the  growth  of 
Chinese  Buddhism,  the  connection  of  Hindu  and  Thibetan 
forms  with  the  serpent-symbol  is  unmistakable.  The 
Amravati  Topes,  the  Pictorial  Stone-Bible  of  Buddhism, 
are  covered  with  innumerable  emblematic  sculptures  al- 
most all  of  which  bear  relation  to  the  Naga  people,  and 
when  explained,  as  they  are  now  likely  to  be  by  the  studies 
of  Dr.  Beal,2  as  representing  the  Jatakas,  or  stories  of 
Buddha's  previous  lives,  will  throw  great  light  on  the  history 
of  the  faith.  The  serpent  in  Hindu  mythology  has  mysti- 
cal meanings  which  ally  him  to  Buddhist  philosophy.  He 
is  a  sacred  ascetic,  withdrawn  into  Nature  to  receive  like 
it  the  impregnation  of  the  spirit. 

The  power  of  Buddhism  proceeds  from  qualities  and 
its  inade-  principles  deeper  than  any  special  cultus  of  living 
quacy.  or  natural  objects.  The  superstitious  hatred  of 
early  and  mediaeval  Christianity  to  the  snake,3  and  its  close 
connection  with  the  conception  of  a  personal  Devil,  so  con- 
spicuous in  that  faith,  would  not  justify  us  in  regarding 
Christianity  itself  as  a  mere  reaction  against  the  symbolic 
set  pent- worship  of  the  Hebrews. 

Eighteen  hundred  years  have  elapsed  since  Buddhism 
wonders  entered  on  its  career  in  China.  It  has  given  dynas- 
effected  tjes  to  faQ  empire,  carried  monarchs  from  the  throne 

by  Budd-        . 

hismin       into  its  monasteries,  set  up  its  images  in  the  palace, 
and  penetrated  the  masses  with  a  symbolism  for- 

1  The  serpent  is  also  associated  in  primitive  mythology  with  the  Rain  Cloud,  over  which 
the  Sun  is  victorious  ;  whence  the  curious  mixture  of  good  and  evil  in  the  symbol.     Compare 
the  Vedic  legend  of  Vritra  with  the  serpent-worship  of  Egypt  and   Mexico.     See  also  Gold- 
ziher's  Hebr.  My  thai. 

2  Journ.  of  Roy.  As.  Sac.  1870. 

8  See  Croyances  PopuL  du  May  en  Age,  par  S-  L.  Jacob  (1859),  p.  17. 


COMING    OF    BUDDHISM.  743 

eign  to  their  traditions  ;  besides  domesticating,  though  with 
modified  meaning,  a  philosophy  wholly  contrary  to  the 
mental  habits  of  the  most  conservative  nation  in  history. 
In  the  old  national  books  and  rites  there  is  not  a  sign  of 
images  nor  paintings  ;  all  such  art  is  confined  by  this 
literary  people  to  their  written  signs.  Buddhism  has 
Covered  China  with  both  these  products.  All  the  statuary 
that  so  profusely  adorns  the  national  tombs,  although 
largely  of  Confucian  origin,  is  yet  later  than  the  introduc- 
tion of  Buddhism.  The  temples  of  this  exuberant  sym- 
bolism are  crowded  with  figures  of  saints  and  hosts  of 
pictures.  The  stirring  industry  of  artisans  and  traders  has 
been  beset  with  serene  Buddhas,  countless  as  the  stars,  sit- 
ting in  cross-legged  remonstrance  against  all  this  toil  and 
trouble  for  a  world  of  dream.  The  sober  sense  of  these 
busy  realists  is  mocked  by  many-headed  gods  and  colossal 
prayer-wheels  turned  with  levers  by  ox-power  ; l  by  huge 
pagodas  hidden  inside  and  out  under  countless  repetitions 
of  the  human  being  renouncing  his  human  functions  ;2  and 
by  wooden  carvings  of  saints  with  entrails  of  silver  or  skins 
of  gold.3  Over  against  the  busy  marts  and  ancestral  shrines 
of  Canton  rises  the  lofty  island  of  Poo-to,  covered  with 
temples  of  Buddhist  pilgrimage,  and  ascended  by  winding 
stairs  that  overlook  a  wilderness  of  beautiful  monastic 
gardens.4  Grotesque  -and  horrible  paintings  of  Buddhist 
penalties  in  the  other  world  ape  the  courts  of  the  secular 
mandarins.  Rosaries,  drums,  paper  drafts  on  heaven, 
transmigration  indulgences  sold  by  strolling  priests,  have 
come  to  exert  fascinations  on  a  people  who  have  neither 
a  church  nor  a  class  privileged  to  hold  the  keys  of  heaven 
and  hell.  The  Grand  Lama  presented  the  Manchu  Em- 
peror on  his  accession  with  a  golden  rosary,  in  token  of 

1  Bastian,  p.  40.  *  Dool.  II.  467. 

8  Nevius,  p.  93  ;   Treaty  Ports  of  China,  p.  160. 

*  Fortune's  Wanderings,  p.  172  ;  La  Chine  Ouverte,  p.  149. 


744  BELIEFS. 

the  union  of  races  under  one  sovereign  ;  and  the  mandarins 
themselves  now  wear  the  symbol  of  Buddhism  as  a  part  of 
their  official  dress. 

Nearly  two  thousand  works  have  been  translated  from 
its  prolific  the  Sanscrit  by  Buddhist  missionaries  and  native 
literature.  schoiars  since  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
era  ; A  while  the  list  of  native  compositions,  biographical, 
ethical,  philosophical,  and  ritualistic,  already  known  to 
Western  students,  counts  up  to  hundreds  of  volumes  ;  all 
elaborately  classified  according  to  schools,  with  verbal  keys 
and  definitions.  These  great  catalogues  alone  testify  of  a 
propagandism  of  unexampled  ardor  and  success,  yet  in  full 
accord  with  what  we  have  already  seen  in  other  spheres  of 
Buddhist  energy.  The  canon  in  China  is  seven  hundred 
times  the  amount  of  the  New  Testament.2  Hiouen  Thsang's 
translation  of  the  Prajna  Paramita  is  twenty-five  times  as 
large  as  the  whole  Christian  Bible.  Beal  enumerated,  in 
a  paper  read  before  the  Congress  of  Orientalists,  in  1874, 
forty-seven  (translations  of)  Sutras,  and  one  hundred  and 
twelve  volumes.  Wu-ti  (6th  century)  is  said  to  have  col- 
lected a  library  of  fifty-four  hundred  Buddhist  works,  and 
the  amount  of  these  translations  was  enormously  greater 
than  that  of  the  Confucian  classics.3  "  It  is  an  easy  task," 
say  the  literati,  "  to  read  our  Classics  and  philosophy,  in 
comparison  with  the  five  or  six  thousand  volumes  concern- 
ing the  doctrine  of  Buddhism."  4 

But,  after  all,  the  extraordinary  growth  of  this  religion 
Laws  of  in  China  will  be  found  to  illustrate  the  same  laws 
Rdfeton1  °f  historical  continuity,  reaction,  ideal  demand  and 
explain  this  supply,  which  account  for  the  rise  and  progress  of 

growth.  .    .  , .     . 

all  positive  religions. 

1  Beal,  Budd.  Pilgrims  (xxxiii.),  says  this  number  had  been  translated  as  early  as  the 
Sui  dynasty  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries. 

2  Beal's  Catena  of  Budd.  Script.,  p.  2. 
8  Schott,  Chin.  Lit.,  p.  40. 

4  Neumann,  Pref.  to  Catechism  of  Shamans. 


COMING   OF    BUDDHISM. -^  '745      * 

I.  We  note,  in  the  first  place,  that  its  introduction  was  by  ^> 
no  means  rapid.     Centuries  elapsed  from  the  first 

arrival  of  its  monks  under  convoy  of  trading  cara- 
vans  from  Kashmir  and  Nepal,  before  any  progress  secular  aid. 
was  made ;  and  its  first  important  steps  were  effected  by 
imperial  aid.1  It  made  itself  useful  to  kings  by  its  powers 
of  divination,  even  in  their  campaigns.2  Notwithstanding 
this,  it  worked  slowly  among  the  masses  ;  being  bitterly 
opposed,  as  we  should  expect,  by  the  followers  of  Confucius 
and  Lao-tse.3  It  was  only  after  the  wars  of  the  Three 
Kingdoms  in  the  fifth  century  that  the  root  was  fairly 
struck  in  the  soil,  though  during  all  this  time  missionaries 
were  constantly  travelling  back  and  forth  between  China 
and  the  Buddhist  States  to  the  West  and  South. 

II.  In  the  next  place,  it  was  the  practical  part  of  Budd- 
hism that  was  first   introduced    into    China;    the  n  Iueth 
part  most  in  accordance  with  the  traditional  taste 

for  simple  ethics  and  for  honoring  great  teachers, 
It  was  easy  to  gain  access  for  one  so  famous  as  «s  points 
Sakya-mouni  for  his   advocacy  of  popular  rights,  ^*^7 
into  the  pantheon   of   Chinese   saints.     The  toler- nesePrinci- 
ance,  forbearance,  and  mercy  which  inspired  Budd-  P 
hist  ethics,  the  call  of  its  devoted  preachers  to  self-discipline 
and    mutual    service,  did  but  carry  out  ideals   familiar  to 
every  youth  in  China,  the  burden  of  classics,  schoolbooks, 
and   domestic   training.      The   first  translation   from    the 
Sanscrit  was  "  the  Sutra  of  Forty-two  Sections," 4  whose 
ethical  character  might  readily  enough  present  it  The  Sutra 

as  an  outgrowth  of  native  culture,  intensified  by  an  of  forty" 

J         two  sec- 
ardent  humanity  hinting  of  fresh  inspiration,  like  tions. 

Christianity  in  its  rise  out  of  Judaism.     Its  vow  to  "return 

1  Lassen,  II.  1078-80. 

2  As  seen  in  the  history  of  Buddhaguddi,  a  seer  of  great  influence  in  the  fourth  century. 
Lassen,  II.  1082. 

3  Les  Ordres  Relig.    de    ?Emp.    Chinois    (par    Bazin).       Jour.    As.     1856,  pp.    109, 
no. 

*  Deal's  Catena,  p.  189  ;  Budd,  Pilgr.  p.  22. 


746  BELIEFS. 

evil  with  ungrudging  love,  the  more  good  for  the  greater 
evil  "  (c.  7)  ;  its  noble  definition  of  goodness,  as  "  agree- 
ment of  the  will  with  the  conscience"  (c.  13) ;  its  "  twenty 
difficult  objects  "  to  be  pursued  as  virtues,  all  of  them 
forms  of  ethical  balance,  of  the  "  mean"  as  between  ex- 
tremes, —  such  as  "  strength  without  rashness,"  "  touching 
objects  without  setting  heart  on  them,"  "  success  without 
exaltation,"  "  knowledge  and  ability  without  lack  of  good- 
ness," "  use  of  means  without  compromising  principles  ;" 
and  its  counsel  to  "  keep  the  mind  well-adjusted,  so  as  to 
acquire  reason  "  (c.  1 1,  33),  — are  all  thoroughly  in  the  Con- 
fucian spirit.  Its  pensive  sense  of  universal  impermanence 
is  a  natural  feature  of  the  Chinese  poetic  temperament,  and 
its  contempt  for  class  pretensions,  as  "  dust  motes  and 
broken  platters "  (c.  42),  is  as  familiar  to  native  Chinese 
instincts  as  to  Buddhist  reform.  Not  only  does  this  nobly 
ethical  Sutra  lay  little  stress  on  merely  speculative  grounds 
of  belief,  but  it  declares  in  almost  the  words  of  Confucius 
that  discussions  about  heaven  and  earth,  spirits  and  de- 
mons, are  of  infinitely  less  merit  than  doing  one's  duty 
to  parents,  who  are  verily  divine  (c.  10).  Instead  of  the 
mystical  Nirvana  of  the  later  schools,  the  end  of  endeavor 
is,  "  through  purification  of  the  heart  "  from  falsehood  and 
lust,  "  to  rise  to  the  paradise  where  reason  and  virtue 
constantly  abide  "  (c.  14). 

The  Puritanism  of  these  beginnings  is  also  recognizable 
The  Gate-  in  the  "  Catechism  of  the  Modern  Shamans,"  for 
thTsh^  t*ie  use  °f  monasteries  ;  whose  rules  embody  the 
mans.  permanent  principles  of  the  faith.  It  protests 
against  ornaments,  lewd  songs,  theatres,  and  sorcery,  as 
well  as  all  such  games  as  chess  and  dice  as  leading  to 
gambling  and  other  forms  of  dissipation;  all  natural 
enough  in  a  great  people  whose  tastes  peculiarly  exposed 
them  to  such  temptations.1  In  the  similar  ethics  of  the 

1  Neumann's  Translation,  pp.  68-70. 


COMING    OF    BUDDHISM.  747 

Dhammapadam,  and  of  the  "  Four  Verities,"  the  kernel  of 
the  Buddhist  creed,  there  is  certainly  nothing  incon-  The 
sistent  with  Chinese  habits  of  thought,  or  unsuited  m^aa™m." 
to  attract  persons  who  desired  to  live  thoughtful  " Fotir 

,.  .  .    .  .  Verities," 

and  earnest  lives  in  conformity  with  the  national  &c. 
ideal.  In  this  work,  Nirvana  is  peace,  purity,  permanence, 
personal  blessedness,  and  release.  The  burdens  of  change, 
disease,  and  death  are  announced  to  have  their  roots  in 
ignorance,  and  to  be  subject  to  trie  mastership  of  the 
"  Right  Path."  The  simple  Gathas  *  of  the  Pratimoksha, 
which  belongs  to  an  age  previous  to  Christianity,2  and 
contains  the  rules  of  conventual  discipline  at  the  earliest 
formation  of  the  Buddhist  Church,  might  easily  have  em- 
anated from  any  Chinese  sage.  "  Patience  and  resigna- 
tion is  the  only  road."  "  The  mind  made  to  see  clearly  can 
avoid  the  ills  of  life."  "  Without  complaint  or  envy,  re- 
straining appetite,  cheerful,  and  fixed  in  virtue  ever  Sympa. 
advancing,  is  the  doctrine  of  all  the  Buddhas."3  the 
The  phraseology  of  older  Confucianism  is  used 
freely  in  the  Buddhist  works,  —  such  as  Tao  (right  !erms» and 
way),  Shing-jin  (perfect  man),  Shin  (spirits  of  the 
dead).4  The  Classics  themselves  were  freely  accepted. 
Neumann  had  in  his  possession  a  Buddhist  exposition  of 
the  Ta-hio  and  Chung-yung  ; 5  and  the  Catechism  itself  ap- 
peals to  the  great  examples  of  the  ancient  kings.6  The 
speculative  kernel  of  all  Buddhist  ethics  places  virtue  and 
wisdom  in  the  "  identity  of  opposites,"  and  refers  external 
phenomena  to  "  the  heart  as  the  one  essence,  thus  seeking 
the  great  deep  of  the  Right  Mean  ;  " 7  while  a  very  early 
translation  from  the  Sanscrit  describes  Sakya  as  "  realizing 
the  truth  of  the  Middle  Path,  like  the  musician  who  tunes 
his  strings  to  the  medium  point  of  tension."  8  The  concen- 

1  Rhymed  sentences  interspersed  in  the  text.  2  Beal's  Catena*  pp.  7,  i8p. 

3  Ibid.,  pp.  158,  159.  4  Catechism  of  Shamans.  6  Ibid.  °  Ibid.,  p.  68. 

7  Catena  (from  Jin-chau,  1573),  pp.  26-28. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  133.     So  the  Siamese  ( Wheel  of  Law,  p.  141). 


748  BELIEFS. 

tration  of  the  mind  on  the  nature  of  things  and  their  actual 
laws  of  birth  and  change,  in  place  of  explaining  their  origin 
from  a  creative  will,  is  peculiarly  Chinese.1  So  the  infinity 
of  reason  and  of  the  laws  of  the  universe  is  as  strongly 
stated  in  the  Lunyu  and  in  the  Tao-te-king  of  Lao-tse  as 
anywhere  in  Buddhism. 

It  is  true  that  a  highly  speculative  Sutra  (the  Dasabhumi) 
The  was  translated  among  the  earliest  ;  but  it  was  to 
vdiS  "  °t>tain  works  of  a  simpler  and  more  strictly  ethical 
or  specu-  nature  that  Fa-hian  travelled  to  India  in  the  fourth 
doctrine,  century.2  Not  till  eight  hundred  years  after  the 


commencement  of  Buddhist  missions  did  the  mys- 
tical doctrines  called  "  the  Great  Vehicle  "  begin  to  affect 
the  character  of  the  faith  in  China.  In  the  sixth  century, 
the  twenty-eighth  patriarch,  Bodhidharma,  exiled  from  India, 
brought  this  thoroughly  Hindu  system  into  China,  intro- 
ducing at  the  same  time  ascetic  practices  familiar  to  the 
Hindus.3  It  was  hardly  Chinese  to  sit  for  nine  years  with 
one's  face  to  a  wall.4  But  even  in  the  wisdom  of  the  "  Great 
its  Chinese  Vehicle  "  there  were  elements  to  which  the  Chi- 
affinities.  nese  m'm&  could  readily  attach  itself,  such  as  the 
identity  of  substance  and  phenomena,  and  the  self-evolution 
of  worlds.  This,  the  doctrine  of  the  Swabhavika,  is  now 
the  most  widely  extended  in  the  Buddhist  schools  of  China. 
The  impersonal  theism  of  the  Thibetan  schools  6  is,  more- 
over, closely  allied  to  the  later  forms  of  Confucian  philos- 
ophy. It  was  not,  however,  till  the  eleventh  and  fifteenth 
centuries  that  any  thing  like  a  proper  canon  of  speculative 
Buddhism  was  formed  in  China.6  Without  entering  further 
into  these  points  at  present,  we  may  say  with  confidence 
that  the  religion  of  Sakya,  as  domesticated  in  China,  was 
a  form  of  incitement  to  humane  and  self-disciplined  liv- 

1  See  Modern  Buddhist,  pp.  47-51  ;  29,  32.  2  Budd  Pilgr.,-p.  4. 

8  See  Wassilief,  Le  Bouddhisme,  pp.  35,  36. 

«  Budd.  Pilgr.,  XXX.     Ampere,  Science  en  Orient,  117-131. 

6  See  Schlagintweit,  Munch.  Ak.  d.  tfiss.,  Feb.  1864.  «  Eitel. 


COMING    OF    BUDDHISM.  749 

ing,  rather  than   to   monastic  institutions  or   speculative 
creeds.1 

III.  The  literary  industry  of  the  Buddhist  missionaries 
must  have  greatly  conduced  to  their  success,  as  m    In_ 
surpassing  the  natives  in  the  very  art  which  was  dustry  of 
in  widest  repute  and  use.     These  ardent  toils  must  hi*t  s"hol~. 


have  powerfully  counteracted  their  own  anti-Chi- 
nese  theory  of  the  vanity  of  this  life.  To  the 
wondering  eyes  of  a  wisdom-loving  race  they  revealed  an 
unknown  world  of  literature,  —  vast,  earnest,  profoundly 
moral,  and  pointing  on  to  restful  heavens  beyond  earthly 
toils.  Of  the  immense  stock  that  rapidly  accumulated,  the 
vast  majority  of  works  were  translations  from  the  Sanscrit  ; 
and  but  a  handful  were  of  native  origin.  But  the  labors  of 
the  missionaries  were  not  in  the  cloisters  so  much  as  in  the 
streets.  They  were  preachers,  rather  than  monks.  Insti- 
tutions for  those  who  wished  to  renounce  the  world  hardly 
obtained  foothold  in  China  before  the  fifth  century  ;  at 
which  time  they  rapidly  increased,  and  a  hierarchy  was 
developed.2 

Even  when  monastic  institutions  had  become  numerous, 
they  do  not  seem,  as  in  Christian  history,  to  have  Monastic 
impeded  the  industry  of  the  nation  to  any  great  institutions 
extent.     In  Western  China  and  Thibet,  the  quiet  ^7 
monasteries  afforded  a  natural  point  of  rest  ;  since  £aith- 
their  rules  of  seclusion  required  no  change  in  the  dreamy 
far-gazing  passivity  of  the  nomadic  mind,  but  rather  served 
to  fix  it  in  the  definite  channels  which  it  lacked.     In  the 
wear  of  Chinese  civilization   they  were  in   many  obvious 
ways  a  relief  ;  nor  is   it  probable  that  a  larger  proportion 
of  the  population  has  availed  itself  of  the  monastic  or  men- 
dicant life  than  would  be  naturally  due   to  reaction  from 
toilsome  external  routines  towards  an  equally  monotonous, 

1  That  this  was  the  case  with  the  earliest  forms  of  Buddhism  in  India  and  Kashmir,  see 
Wassilief,  p.  61.  a  Bazin,  p.  116. 


750  BELIEFS. 

but  quite  different  kind  of  social  mechanism.1  The  pro- 
digious growth  of  monachism  in  an  early  stage  of  Chris- 
tianity was  not  a  more  natural  reaction  on  the  intense 
political  and  social  absorption  of  the  Roman  world. 

IV.  But  before  considering  reactionary  helps  to  the 
iv  Sym-  Buddhist  missions,  we  may  note  other  adaptations 
pathiesof  in  this  religion  for  Chinese  life.  The  chief  of  these 
was  its  own  all-embracing  hospitality,  —  an  affirma- 
tive spirit  in  remarkable  contrast  with  the  apparent  nega- 
tion of  its  creed.2  Thus  it  readily  associated  itself  with 
the  traditional  rites  in  honor  of  ancestors,3  and  its  sympa- 
thies admitted  not  only  the  historical  ideals  of  China,  but 
the  kwei-shlfty  their  invisible  representatives,  whom  the 
patriarchal  sentiment  had  identified  with  all  the  relations 
of  life,  both  domestic  and  public.  "  The  Kwei-Shin  rever- 
ently attend  the  reading  of  Sanscrit  (Btiddhist)  books," 
says  Jin-chau  in  his  account  of  the  Buddhist  Cosmos.4 
They  were  gathered  into  the  fold  of  this  universal  religion 
in  China,  as  were  the  old  Brahmanical  gods  in  India.  Its 
temples  contain  statues  dedicated  to  the  inventors  of  agri- 
culture, of  fine  arts,  and  of  useful  articles ;  to  departed  phi- 
lanthropists, beloved  officials,  martyrs,  literati,  and  sages.5 
The  stores  of  Tao-sse  legends  and  popular  superstitions, 
growing  up  for  ages,  were  treated  in  the  same  manner ; 
receiving  expansion  and  systematic  form  from  this  con- 
structive force  of  Buddhist  sympathy.6  As  the  Chinese 
its  supply  had  not  waited  for  Buddhism  to  set  them  upon 
native-  pursuing  the  secret  of  immortality,  so  their  clear 
ments.  sense  of  the  continuity  of  cause  and  effect,  and  of 
the  close  connection  between  the  visible  and  invisible 
worlds,  was  a  natural  pre-formation  for  Buddhism  to  work 
into  its  own  better  defined  systems  (i)  of  the  Karma,  or 

1  On  the  slow  growth  of  monastic  life  in  China,  see  evidences  in  Wassilief. 

2  See  the  first  volume  of  this  work. 
8  Chin.  Ouverte,  p.  242. 

4  Translated  in  Beal's  Catena,  p.  23.          6  chin.  Ouverte,  p.  153.         «  Bazin,  p.  130. 


COMING   OF    BUDDHISM.  751 

new  body  derived  after  death  from  the  moral  elements  of 
the  past  life,  and  (2)  of  transmigration-spheres  dependent 
on  like  ethical  necessities.  Those  sober  ways  of  conceiv- 
ing the  relations  of  man  with  an  unseen  world,  which  had 
prevailed  in  China  for  ages,  were  supplemented  by  the 
imaginative  genius  thus  imported  from  India ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  Buddhism  so  far  accepted  the  politico-concrete 
tastes  of  the  Chinese  as  to  form  its  Inferno  on  the  model 
of  the  penal  codes,  and  its  judgment  days  on  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  mandarin  courts.  Nothing  like  these  phenom- 
ena is  found  in  the  Buddhism  of  other  countries. 

We  naturally  ask  how  the  transmigration  faith  of  Budd- 
hism could  have  become  reconciled  with  the  tab-  Reconciie- 
let-home  of  the  dead,  and  their  continued  depen-  JTV1 

beliefs  ap- 

dence  on  the  personal  support  and  sympathy  which  patently 
they  received  during  life.    But  is  this  stranger  than  ^nsm!-' 
that  popular  Christianity  should  be  able  to  combine  sration 
the  notion  of  purgatory,  and  even  of  heaven,  with  spirit-6 
that  sentiment  concerning  the  abode  of  the  spirit  tablet- 
till   the   resurrection    day,    which,    among   other   motives, 
draws    surviving    friends    to   frequent    the    place    of    the 
body's  rest  ?     It  simply  shows  how  incapable  the  mass  of 
minds  are,  in  any  religion,  of  reconciling  reason  and  emo- 
tion on  matters  so  inscrutable  as  the  future  state  of  being ; 
and  how  little  difference  there  is,  in  this  respect,  between 
the  naturalism  of  the  pagan   and  the  supposed  enlighten- 
ment of  the  Christian  by  positive  revelation. 

The  promise  of  a  happy  transmigration  was  doubtless  an 
attraction,  as  offered  by  the  early  Buddhist  teach-  other  at- 
ers.  Redemption  from  the  consequences  of  sin  by  \™ures  of 
counterbalancing  good  works  based  upon  liberal  B»ddhism- 
conditions,  the  prospect  of  prayers  in  one's  behalf  and  at 
one's  tomb  by  a  body  of  priests,  and  the  fascinations  of  the 
Buddhist  paradise,  were  all  powerful  inducements  to  accept 
the  faith. 


752  BELIEFS. 

The  form  under  which  Buddhism  prevails  in  China  is 
changes  really  in  many  respects  a  distinctive  product  of 
foradapta-  fte  national  type.  It  differs  materially  both  from 

tion  to 

Chinese  the  Buddhism  of  India  in  earlier  times,  and  from 
thought.  the  Thibetan,  Ceylonese,  and  Siamese  in  later. 
It  is  found  to  have  passed  through  internal  changes  in 
adapting  itself  to  these  special  conditions,  quite  as  great  as 
those  which  it  introduced  among  the  people  it  sought  to 
transform.  The  worship  of  mortuary  relics  was  exchanged 
for  the  rites  of  the  shin.  The  earthen  charnel-house 
(stupd)  gave  way  to  the  cheerful  ancestral  shrine.  The 
concrete  paradise  of  Amitabha  was  substituted  for  the 
Nirvana  of  speculative  Buddhism,  and  large  portions  of 
the  cosmical  and  geographical  lore  of  the  faith  were  based 
upon  Chinese  traditions. 

V.  Buddhism  derived  great  influence  in  China  from  its 
v  A  force  won(^er^  u^  organizing  capacity.  It  gave  point  and 
oforgani-  system  to  weak  mythologic  instincts,  and  lent  the 
authority  of  association  and  hierarchy  to  the  ascetic 
impulse.  Thus  it  could  not  fail  to  be  recruited  from  the 
Tao-sse.  This  "  School  of  Reason  "  was  a  far  greater  re- 
action on  Chinese  habits  of  mutual  dependence  and  com- 
bination than  that  of  Fo  ;  so  that  those  who  had  forsaken 
the  living  world  at  its  call  were  all  the  more  prepared  to 
welcome  a  substitute  for  the  social  resources  to  which 
they  had  been  used,  in  the  unworldly  constructiveness  of 
Buddhism.  The  "  Catechism  of  the  Shamans  "  shows  by 
its  minute  rules  of  obedience  and  etiquette  how  thor- 
oughly the  monastic  disciplines  correspond  with  those 
strong  instincts  of  the  Chinese  mind,  —  reverence  for  pa- 
rental authority  and  social  obeisance.  The  necessary  sub- 
without  stitutions  are  effected  with  as  little  disturbance  as 
possible  of  those  attitudes  of  mind  with  which  the 


previous     happiest   activity    of   the   convert   has   been   pre- 
viously  connected.     The  vows  of  the  novice  are 


COMING    OF    BUDDHISM.  753 

confined  to  familiar  precepts  of  Chinese  morality.  The 
minute  prescriptions  laid  down  for  his  most  ordi- 
nary  duties  merely  carry  out  the  familiar  teaching  ^" 
of  home  and  school  in  a  new  sphere  ;  at  the  same  uy. 
time  this  new  sphere,  as  involving  a  total  change  of  dress 
and  exclusion  from  intercourse  with  relatives,  becomes 
that  pronounced  renunciation  of  the  world  which  is  re- 
quired. In  this  way  the  large  class  that  desires  to  take  a 
new  departure  without  losing  hold  on  constitutional  in- 
stincts and  cherished  methods,  and  to  live  a  life  unspotted 
from  the  world  without  ceasing  to  be  substantially  Chinese, 
is  skilfully  met  and  satisfied.  The  completeness  of  the 
change  is  illustrated  in  the  legends  of  Buddha,  which 
show  him  adored  by  his  own  father,  and  justified  by  his 
merits  in  treating  all  his  near  kindred  as  he  did  the  rest  of 
mankind.1  Yet  the  convent  is  the  image  of  the  family.  Its 
Superior  possesses  all  the  authority  of  the  natural  father 
whom  he  supersedes  ;  and  the  filial  piety  involved  in  those 
sacrifices  to  ancestors,  which  the  Buddhist  monk,  though 
not  the  layman,  must  abandon,  is  simply  transferred  to 
him.2 

As  matter  of  fact,  the  habits  of  these  Buddhist  monks  as 
described  by  travellers  betray  that  they  are  still  subject  to 
the  dispositions  and  tastes  which  they  had  before  entering 
the  "  holy  life."  The  lazy,  gluttonous,  sensual,  are  not 
altered  by  the  opportunity  of  spending  their  lives  in  chant- 
ing formulas  and  performing  genuflections  before  images. 
Like  all  other  religions,  Buddhism  opens  doors  to  self-in- 
dulgence, and  the  extremest  philosophy  of  self-abnegation 
and  worldTemptiness  runs  upon  the  verge  of  incontinence. 

VI.  But  the  growth  of  Buddhism  in  China  was  fur- 
thered by  reactions  against  existing  conditions,  as  vi.  A  force 
well  as  by  their  development.  Whether  the  power  of  reaction- 
of  persecution  to  multiply  the  forces  of  a  patient  and  ear- 

1  See  Alabaster's  Wheel  of  the  Law,  for  such  legends.  2  JSazin,  pp.  161-163. 

48 


754  BELIEFS. 

nest  faith  like  this  can  be  numbered  among  these  helps, 
is  questionable.  After  all,  there  were  but  two  great  per- 
secutions of  the  sect ;  and  these  involved  proscription  and 
secularization  rather  than  martyrdom.  They  were  not  to 
be  compared  with  the  persecutions  which  gave  such  im- 
A  ainst  Pu^se  to  tne  growth  of  the  early  Christian  Church. 
Confucian  Yet  the  inherent  contempt  of  Confucian  rational- 
contempt.  ism  £or  tke  priesthood  must  have  tended  to  in- 
crease their  repute  among  the  ignorant  and  superstitious. 
An  element  of  far  greater  value  is  the  natural  demand 
for  release  from  routines  of  incessant  toil  and  ab- 

Against  .  .          . 

material      sorption  in  material  interests,  into  an  atmosphere 
interests     of  meditation,  or  at  least  of  rest.     The  Chinese 

and  rou- 
tines of       were  never  without  interest  in  the  invisible;  but 

the  emphasis  of  Buddhism  was  on  that  side  of 
things,  and  drew  the  mind  to  its  mysteries  as  the  daily 
food  of  thought.  It  was  a  complete  relief  from  the  tradi- 
tional concentration  on  the  present  life,  —  a  reaction  to 
ethical  motives  and  sanctions  derived  from  the  future. 
The  aim  of  the  national  teaching  was  to  lift  ethics 
A  ainst  upon  purely  disinterested  grounds.  But  that,  even 
ethical  in  rationalist  China,  the  mass  of  men  should  be 
from  the  content  to  follow  virtue  without  regard  to  the 
present  adjustment  of  earthly  accounts  by  rewards  and 

life  only.  .  . 

penalties  in  another  life  was  not  to  be  expected. 
Buddhism  waged  constant  dispute  with  Confucianism  on 
this  point.  A  centre  of  attraction  was  thus  established  for 
great  numbers,  who  desired  positive  dogma  and  supernat- 
ural guarantee  concerning  questions  which  the  philosophic 
mind  was  content  to  leave  unsolved. 

We  must  add  reactions  of  a  political  nature.  The  chief 
Secular  resource  of  Buddhism  in  earlier,  and  perhaps  in 
political  later,  periods  was  the  friendly  interest  of  emperors, 
reactions.  In  all  religious  history  the  secular  world,  as  em- 
bodying the  common  sense  and  practical  interests  of  the 


COMING    OF    BUDDHISM.  755 

community,  has  been  the  natural  support  of  protest,  if  not 
of  reform.  In  the  present  case  imperial  aid  was  largely 
due  to  jealousy  of  the  literary  class,  which  was  a  constant 
censor  of  the  rulers,  and  the  main  obstacle  to  their  martial 
enterprise.  It  maintained  the  supremacy  of  civil  over  mil- 
itary power,  and  by  its  peaceful  precepts  nullified  many 
ambitious  schemes,  perhaps  also  many  needed  efforts  at 
national  defence.  The  wrath  of  Chi-hwang-ti,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  but  the  explosion  of  these  long-suppressed  antag- 
onisms. Most  of  the  services  rendered  to  Buddhism  in  its 
efforts  to  supplant  Confucianism,  by  monarchs  of  the  Han, 
the  T'ang,  and  the  Youen  dynasties,  were  more  quiet  and 
continuous  forces  in  the  same  spirit. 

The  exclusion  of  the  community  as  a  whole  from  per- 
forming the  national  rites  has  not  only  resulted  in  wide- 
spread associations  for  political  revolution  under  the  name 
of  religion,  but  has  produced,  very  naturally,  a  disposition 
to  accept  rites  and  mythologies  of  foreign  origin  to  supply 
their  place. 

Counteractive  of  such  favoring  influences  from  the  State 
were  the  restrictions  it   imposed  on  ecclesiastical  Counter. 
life.    While  admitting  the  Buddhists  to  free  growth,  active  re- 
it  assumed   that  direction   over   their  institutions 
which  belongs  to  its  claim  of  fatherhood  over  all  political 
and  religious  spheres.     While  the  convents  are  permitted 
to  administer  their  own  affairs,  no  person,  since  the  T'ang, 
has  been  allowed  to  enter  the  novitiate  without  a  license  ; 
nor  can  a  monastery  be  founded  except  on  similar  terms. 
In  1309,  a  Youen  emperor  abolished  the  immunity  of  these 
institutions  from  taxation.1     The  penalty  for  sorcery  by  a 
priest  is  two  degrees  more  severe  than  for  the  same  crime 
by  a  layman. 

VII.     To  all  these  explanations  of  the  extension  of  Gau- 

1  Bazin,  pp.  153,  154;  149. 


756  BELIEFS. 

tama's  gospel  in  China  we  hasten  to  add  those  which  are 
suggested  by  what  it  was  in  itself,  and  by  what  it  had  a 
vn.  in-  right  to  expect  on  the  principles  of  universal  re- 
lueToV"'  n'gi°n-  Its  earnest  effort  to  mitigate  the  burdens 
Buddhism,  of,  life,  to  counterbalance  the  sense  of  imperma- 
nence,  to  lead  the  consciousness  of  sinfulness  and  dishar- 
mony to  trust  in  remedial  laws  and  in  final  release  ;  its  aim 
to  interpret  the  inexorableness  of  natural  cause  and  effect 
in  the  interest  of  ethical  justice,  and  to  reconcile  it  with 
spiritual  ideals  ;  its  philosophy  of  atonement  through  right- 
eousness alone ;  its  gospel  of  pity  ;  its  call  to  absolute 
self-abnegation  and  eternal  devotion  to  the  good  of  man- 
kind ;  its  pure  ethics  ;  its  peaceful  disciplines  ;  its  ardor  in 
constructive  labors  and  civilizing  arts,  —  are  adequate  to 
explain  a  great  measure  of  success  for  any  faith  in  any  age 
or  country.  Not  less  attractive  is  its  toleration  for  all 
beliefs  which  pursue  the  same  end  of  human  good,  and 
that  rejection  of  punishment  for  opinion's  sake,  which  is  so 
well  illustrated  in  the  dealing  of  Buddhist  logic  with  Chris- 
tian missionaries.  Says  the  "Modern  Buddhist"  :  — 

"  How  can  we  join  Christianity,  when  each  party  therein  threatens 
us  with  hell  if  we  agree  with  the  other,  and  there  is  none  to  decide 
between  them  ?  I  beg  comparison  of  this  with  the  teaching  of  the 
Lord  Buddha,  that  whoever  endeavors  to  keep  the  commandments 
and  walks  virtuously  must  attain  Heaven."  * 

In  view  of  these  facts  we  must  say,  with  entire  respect 
Eitei's  es-  ^or  Dr.  Eitel,  that  his  characterization  of  Buddhism 
timate.  would  be  to  us  incomprehensible,  did  not  his  frank 
concessions  prove  his  charges  to  be  rather  the  indispensa- 
ble common-place  of  the  Christian  missionary  than  the  con- 
clusions of  his  own  better  reason.  A  strange  estimate  it 
is.  "  No  conscience,  no  God  ;  no  active  principle  of  good- 
ness." Yet  it  "  prepares  the  way  for  Christianity,  if  we 
(i.  e.  Christians)  had  but  half  the  enthusiasm  (i.  e.  for 

1  Whetlofthe  Law,  p.  33. 


DEVELOPMENT    OF    BUDDHISM.  757 

our  own  convictions)  which  inspired  those  disciples  of 
Buddha."  1  Could  any  thing  more  perfectly  illustrate  the 
fact,  that  the  unconscious  complacency  of  Christian  dog- 
matism can  never  explain  to  us  the  feelings  or  the  thought 
of  other  races  ? 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  BUDDHISM. 

THE  enigma  of  Buddhist  success  in  China,  of  which  we 
have  attempted  a  solution,  involves  the  more  gen-  The  Prob- 
eral  problem,  —  how  to  explain  the  prodigious  B™d(^st 
power  exercised  by  this  faith  over  the  destinies  of  expansion, 
mankind.  In  a  previous  volume  I  have  endeavored  to  de- 
scribe its  unequalled  forces  of  expansion  and  persistence; 
the  wide  aptitudes,  by  means  of  which  it  has  civilized  rude 
and  isolated  tribes  on  a  vast  scale,  and  over  regions  sepa- 
rated by  at  least  half  a  hemisphere ;  the  attractions  and 
affinities,  which  have  made  it  the  Nirvana,  into  which  hosts 
of  human  currents  gladly  flow. 

That  a  hideous  worship  of  nonentity,  such  as  most  Chris- 
tian scholars  have  presented  under  the   name  of 

On  the 

Buddhism,  should  be  competent  to  such  enduring  theorythat 
command  over  the  life  of  humanity  would  convict  !!  *0*ship 
our  respect  for  human  nature  of  blindness  and  folly,  of  nonen- 
Can  an  anomaly  cover  a  wider  historic  field  than  t 
the  rule,  and  yet  not  supplant  it  in  our  theory  of  humanity  ? 
Reason  prescribes  the  conviction  that  great  moving  forces 
of  mind  must  be  affirmative  in  substance.  Religion  is 
aspiration  to  the  Best.  Morality  is  allegiance  to  Right. 
Philosophy  is  demonstration  of  the  Real,  as-  basis  of  cul- 
ture and  conduct.  These  three  affirmations  form  the  three- 
fold aspect  of  man's  ideal  life.  But  here,  it  is  pretended,  is 

1  Eitel's  Buddhism,  Lect  I. 


758  BELIEFS. 

a  form  of  religion,  philosophy,  ethics,  which  denies  every- 
thing; which  pursues  the  destruction  of  every  germ  and 
principle  of  existence,  and  treats  right,  truth,  and  good  as 
empty  phrase  and  sorrowful  delusion,  in  common  with  all 
elements  of  perception  and  desire  (sanskara).  And  this 
misnomer  is  the  accepted  faith  of  half  the  civilized  world  ; 
has  been  growing  for  two  thousand  five  hundred  years,  and 
shows  no  signs  of  decay.  Such  an  exception  overthrows 
the  rule  of  reason,  and  humanity  becomes  its  own  mockery 
and  self-contradiction.  Whether  this  is  the  true  present- 
ment of  Buddhism  will  further  appear  by  a  definite  study 
of  its  development  in  the  Chinese  Empire.  The 
tytobe  large  historical  and  literary  data  brought  within 
our  reacn  ^7  recent  researches  are  amply  sufficient 
to  show  whether  Buddhism  is  an  exception  to  the 
principles  of  Universal  Religion,  or  really  presumes 
the  world  and  the  soul  to  be,  behind  all  contradictions, 
mutually  related  for  good.  These  data  have  not  hitherto, 
so  far  as  I  am  aware,  been  used  for  such  a  purpose,  nor  in 
such  large  and  important  bearings.1 

We  must  admit,  at  the  outset,  that  the  defect  of  Budd- 
Bearing  of  bism,  as  of  all  Oriental  faiths,  including  Ohristi- 
science,  or  anity,  is  the  want  of  that  practical  science  which 

the  lack  of    -          J '  .  . 

it,  on  the    refers  transient   phenomena  to  universal  laws  of 
question  of  keautv  and  use,  —  an  element  of  modern  civilization 

the  unreal- 
ity of  phe-  which  has  done  more  than  any  distinctive  religion 

to  reconcile  man  to  his  inevitable  relations  with 
the  finite,  as  real  foothold  and  resource,  and  the  indispen- 
sable path  to  his  ideal.  This  distillation  of  inherent  laws, 
wondrous  enduring  servants  of  human  desire,  from  all 
transient  experiences  of  life,  has  given  a  new  measure  for 
judging  the  question  as  to  objective  reality.  While  the 

1  The  inquiry  is  supplemental  to  the  general  review  of  Buddhism  in  my  volume  on  India, 
and  seems  necessary  to  the  comprehension  of  that  variety  of  forms  and  adaptations  which  this 
sympathetic  faith  has  assumed. 


PRIMITIVE    BUDDHISM.  759 

Eastern  dreamer,  estimating  hearts  and  hopes  and  his 
other  treasures  of  time  by  their  relation  to  permanence 
alone,  pronounced  them  unreal,  the  pupil  of  science,  con- 
cerned with  their  value  as  elements  of  service  to  the  whole 
sum  of  natural  and  spiritual  laws,  finds  them  real.  The 
difference  does  not  indicate  different  degrees  of  moral 
'earnestness,  nor  different  methods  of  reasoning  ;  but  arises 
from  the  concentration  of  scientific  thought  on  temporary 
details  and  materials,  through  the  practical  energy  of  the 
Aryan  race.  If  we  bear  this  important  consideration  in 
mind,  it  will  help  not  only  to  explain  the  seeming  Asex  lan_ 
anomaly  of  Buddhist  negation,  but  also  leave  atoryof 

c  •     •  i  •  r  •  Buddhism. 

room   for    perceiving    that    capacity   for    meeting 
spiritual   and    moral    needs,  which  explains  the   power  of 
this  faith  over  races  and  ages. 

The  meaning  of  Nirvana  does  not  lie  on  the  surface,  nor 
has  it  merely  taught  the  emptiness  of  life  and  time.  The 
realities  of  faith  make  light  of  current  definitions.  As  cen- 
turies pass,  the  colossal  Buddha  of  Japanese  art  sits  un- 
moved on  his  pedestal,  a  divine  benignity  and  wisdom  in 
his  majestic  repose  ;  while  the  granite  face  of  thundering 
Rameses,  lord  of  all  powers  of  conquest,  who  wrote  his 
boasts  of  immortality  on  a  thousand  gigantic  walls,  lies 
broken  in  the  desert  sand. 


I.    PRIMITIVE  BUDDHISM. 

The  sense  of  impermanence  is  one  of  the  largest  factors 
in  the  religious  history  of  mankind.    Ever-recurring 
pangs  of  separation,  involved  in  the  mortality  of  all  of  religion 
beings,  possessions,  and  ties,  make  life  inherently  a  *  ^    of 
tragedy,  into  which  it  is  the  function  of  religion,  as  imper- 
philosophy  or  as  faith,  to  bring  the  reconciling  ele-  manence> 
ment  of  freedom  and  self-respect.     Upon  its  effort  to  affirm 
a  solution  of  the  dread  problem,  to  forecast  deliverance,  to 


760  BELIEFS. 

meet  the  fatal  nay  with  some  indubitable  yea,  depends  the 
title  of  every  system  of  belief  to  the  interest  of  the  student 
of  religion.  It  is  obvious  that  a  philosophy  which  should 
know  only  how  to  deny  what  human  experience  has  sup- 
plied to  meet  these  demands,  could  never  hold  place  in 
human  regard  beyond  some  passing  hour  of  passion  or 
despair.  Equally  improbable  is  it  that  man  should  cling 
for  long  periods  and  in  great  masses  to  a  mere  shell  of 
faith,  a  weak  religious  cohesion  pretending  to  give  foothold 
over  an  acknowledged  infinite  void.  So  much  enduring 
life  will  a  religion  command  as  it  can  show  of  power  to  fill 
the  void,  and  so  much  only.  Thus  it  is  that  the  refinements 
in  Chris-  of  civilized  intercourse,  by  sharpening  the  edge  of 
tianity.  these  keen  fates  of  change  and  loss,  prove  the 
severest  test  of  Christianity.  The  strong  suspicion  of  its 
inability  to  meet  the  demand  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  pro- 
duce wide  and  growing  defection  from  its  name  and  com- 
munion. Its  assurances  of  a  personal  Providence,  and  its 
theory  of  compensation  and  disciplinary  love,  it  is  affirmed, 
blink  the  facts  of  experience,  offsetting  their  bitter  realities 
by  sentimental  desires,  instead  of  accepting  and  solving 
them.  Still  more  damaging  to  its  special  claim  in  an  age 
of  earnest  dealing  with  these  facts,  is  all  resort  to  ancient 
miracle  and  authority,  since  both  expedients  palpably  evade 
in  Budd-  them.  Whatever  defects  may  be  equally  obvious 
hism.  m  Buddhism,  it  cannot  be  charged  with  ignoring 
or  glossing  this  tremendous  problem  of  pain  ;  nor  with 
leaving  out  of  its  solution,  such  as  it  is,  one  fraction  of  the 
reality,  howsoever  mythology  has  idealized  its  founder. 

The  Buddha  gf  oldest  traditions  is  a  prince,  who,  perceiv- 
"Four  *n£  *n  t^ie  sPectac^e  °f  disease,  old  age,  and  death 
verities"  the  law  of  all  existence,  is  moved  by  sympathy  and 

P^y  to  accePt  the  renunciation  to  which  they  point ; 

and  by  thus   trusting  the  law  to  the  utmost  limit 


PRIMITIVE    BUDDHISM.  761 

of  its  demand,  to  make  it  for  himself  and  for  all  men  a 
sure  path  of  final  release.  This  solution  of  the  problem  of 
all  religion  is,  as  I  read  them,  the  substance  of  the  "  Four 
Verities  ;  "  in  which  all  parties  agree  to  find  the  type  of 
early  Buddhism,  and  which  visibly  run,  "like  gold  in  sand," 
through  the  whole  subsequent  development  of  the  faith, 
moral,  metaphysical,  mystical,  its  subtlest  mazes  of  logic 
and  its  endless  cosmogonies,  for  two  thousand  years. 

What  are  these  "  Four  Verities  ? "  —  Pain  ;  the  Cause  of 
Pain  ;  the  Possibility  of  Release  ;  the  Way  of  Re-  Their  eie- 
lease.  The  first  two  are  understood  as  involved  in  ments  of 

positive 

all  existence,  by  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  ;  the  belief. 
last  two  as  resulting  from  the  constitution  of  moral  being. 
Observe  what  elements  of  positive  belief  are  here.  The 
impermanent  world  of  possessions  is  renounced  ;  but  only 
in  the  name  of  sure  deliverance,  to  which  suffering  is  itself 
the  way.  Each  of  the  Four  affirms  either  the  knowledge 
of  inherent  facts  and  causes,  or  the  knowledge  of  inherent 
powers  to  meet  and  overcome  them.  As  the  root  of  evil 
is  in  the  nature  of  self-gratification,  so  its  cure  is  in  the 
mightier  consciousness  of  duty.  The  facts  men  dread  are 
recognized  in  full  ;  the  inviolability  of  law  is  adored  ;  vic- 
tory is  promised,  adequate  and  real  ;  the  struggle  to  reach 
it,  and  to  share  it  with  all  mankind,  is  accepted  as  the  work 
of  life.  Distinctive  of  Buddhism  is  its  full  emphasis  on  the 
dark  side  of  experience,  as  on  a  reality  not  to  be  set  aside 
by  miracle,  providence,  or  compensation  ;  and  its  absorp- 
tion of  every  thought  in  the  way  of  release  measures  alike 
its  confidence  in  this  release,  and  its  realization  of  the  bur- 
den which  makes  release  a  necessity. 

Its  reliance  on  ethical  law  is  absolute.     The  whole  func- 
tion of  life  is  moral.     The  creative  forces  of  the  Their 
universe  are  moral  results.     An  ideal  virtue  is  the  m°™i  em- 
standard  of  all  human  values,  from  which  no  ele-  P 
ment  of  universal  love  and  justice  is  absent.     Charity,  self- 


762  BELIEFS. 

restraint,  forgiveness,  return  of  good  for  evil,  compassion, 
energy,  patience,  and  the  expulsion  of  selfish  desire,  are 
carried  to  an  extreme  which  at  least  implies  enthusiastic 
faith  and  profound  sympathy. 
The  early  Gathas  J  say  :  — 

"  Scrupulously  avoiding  all  wicked  actions,  reverently  performing 
all  virtuous  ones,  purifying  the  intention  from  all  selfish  ends,  — this  is 
the  doctrine  of  all  the  Buddhas." 

"  Destroy  anger  and  there  shall  be  rest."  "  Without  complaint  or 
envy  ;  joyous  without  care  ;  fixed  and  advancing  ever  in  virtue." 

"  As  the  butterfly  sips  the  flower  and  departs  without  harming  it,  so 
the  follower  of  Buddha  hurts  not  another's  goods  ;  observes  not  another's 
sins,  but  watches  his  own  conduct  lest  he  go  wrong.  So  do  ye,  dis- 
ciples, seek  not  more  than  is  needful,  but  be  content  with  what  is 
given."  z 

"  Waste  no  time,  but  think  of  the  fire  that  consumes  all  things  ; 
seek  deliverance  from  it  early,  and  give  not  way  to  sleep.  Avoid 
worldly  interests,  divining  future  events,  and  courting  the  rich.  Aim 
only  at  emancipation  by  self-control  and  right  thought.  Watch  well 
the  heart,  for  it  is  the  ruler  of  the  senses  ;  it  is  like  a  wild  elephant, 
like  an  ape  that  has  got  free  into  the  branches.  Let  it  not  get  the 
mastery.  Let  no  word  of  reproach  escape  your  lips  ;  one  bitter  thought 
is  the  loss  of  all  your  virtue.  Unwavering  self-restraint,  untiring 
patience,  are  the  marks  cf  greatness.  These  are  the  helmet  of  de- 
fence, so  that  no  sword  can  harm  you,  and  no  foe  subdue."  3 

This  is  the  substance  of  all  early  Buddhist  teaching  ;  of 
Early  the  Gathas,  the  Dhammapadam,  the  "  Forty-two 
a  simUa°r  Sections  "  Sutra,  and  the  Vinaya,  or  Disciplines,  as 
character,  seen  in  the  earliest  form  of  the  Pratimoksha  ;  4  an 
intensely  practical  homily,  and  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
ever  preached  to  men.  The  moral  characteristic  is  so 
marked,  that  it  has  become  the  main  test  of  the  antiquity 

1  Short  verses  appended  to  the  Sutras  held  to  belong  to  primitive  Buddhism,  which  for  a 
long  time  was  probably  confined  to  oral  teaching. 

2  Catena,  pp.  156-159;  Wassilief,  Le  Bouddhisme,  p.  no. 

3  Beal's  Translation,  read  before  the  Oriental  Congress  (1874);  from  the  Sutra  of  "Budd- 
ha's Dying  Instruction."     This  Sutra  is  now  believed  by  Mr   Beal  to  be  the  primitive  form  of 
which  the  Pratimoksha  was  an  expansion  for  conventual  purposes. 

4  Wassilief,  p.  too. 


PRIMITIVE    BUDDHISM.  763 

of  Sutras  whose  date  is  not  otherwise  known.  In  further 
evidence  that  the  dawn  of  speculative  inquiry  was  later  than 
this  reliance  on  moral  precept  and  effort,  it  can  be  stated 
that  among  the  questions  discussed  in  the  earlier  schools 
of  Buddhism  (the  Hindyand)  was  whether  the  chains  of 
desire  (sansdra)  could  be  escaped  by  morality  alone.1 

The  initial  aim  was  to  transcend  the  evils  of  life  and  the 
•transmigrations  which  were  their  endless  repeti-  Acceptance 
tion,  by  practice  of  the  highest  virtues  under  such  of  the  best 
forms  as  they  assume  for  contemplative  ages  and  and  of  good 
races.  The  oldest  name  of  its  disciples  was  sense  in  the 
Sramanas?  analogous  to  the  Hebrew  Chasidim 
and  the  English  Puritans.  Their  rejection  of  the  world 
was  strongly  tempered  by  practical  reason.  Their  criterion 
of  virtue,  as  laid  down  from  the  beginning,  even  declared 
that  whatever  is  in  accord  with  good  sense  applied  to  cir- 
cumstances is  in  accord  with  right.3  In  fact,  Buddhism, 
in  its  protest  against  Brahmanism,  retained  the  best  of  ex- 
isting customs  and  beliefs.  Not  only  is  the  whole  Legend 
of  the  Buddha,  with  its  personal  symbolism,  found  to  re- 
produce with  surprising  fidelity  the  old  solar  mythology 
of  the  Vedas,  the  imagery  of  Agni,  of  Vishnu,  and  Purusha ; 4 
it  endows  them  with  a  profound  moral  and  human  mean- 
ing. The  doctrine  of  Sakya  inherits  the  thirst  of  early 
Hindu  philosophy  for  the  permanent,  and  its  faith  in  the 
powers  of  contemplation  and  inward  purification.  It  de- 
velops Kapila's  idea  of  the  independence  of  the  soul,  and  of 
the  illusoriness  of  an  outside  Iswdra,  or  Lord.  Sakya  him- 
self, while  asserting  revelation  and  authority,  is  yet  but  one 
of  an  endless  series  of  teachers,  all  proclaiming  the  same 
tidings,  —  the  eternal  truth  of  Nature,  which  never  was,  and 
never  will  be,  unspoken.  He  is  called  Tathagata,  or  one 
who  comes  like  those  before  him.  He  is  a  man  like  the 

1  Wassilief,  p.  too.  2  Ibid.,  p.  83.  *  Ibid.,  p.  19. 

4  See  the  remarkable  work  of  Senart,  La  Legende  du  Buddha,  Paris,  1875. 


764  BELIEFS. 

millions  around  him  (at  least  in  the  outset),  and  affirms 
only  what  is  human  and  universal. 

The  claim  of  respecting  good  sense  and  rational  uses 
Humani-  was  not  altogether  unfounded.  Buddha  renounced 
ties-  self-torture  and  squalidity,  and  called  the  devotee 
out  of  his  isolation  into  communities  bound  by  common 
labors  and  disciplines,  and  by  a  purpose  to  deliver  all  man- 
kind from  sorrow  and  sin  ;  preaching  openly  to  the  people 
and  affording  them  the  opportunity  of  alms-giving  and  ser- 
vice to  the  law.  He  gave  public  meaning  to  the  religious 
life,  and  made  it  an  educational  force  (element).  He  ig- 
nored its  previous  form  of  caste,  and  announced  it  as  man's 
freehold  without  distinction  of  persons.  At  a  very  early 
period  women  were  admitted  freely  to  the  chief  functions  of 
public  help  and  private  culture.1 

It  has  been  shown  by  Benfey  2  that  the  Buddhists  have 
been  the  principal  circulators  of  Eastern  apologues 


apologues  an<^  P°Pular  tales  over  the  continent  of  Asia,  con- 
and  tales,  tributmg  very  largely  to  the  stock  of  the  Western 
nations  in  this  kind  of  literature,  so  essentially  the  lan- 
guage of  common  sense  and  genial  observation.  Of  the 
distinctively  Buddhist  form  of  these  Fables,  the  beautiful 
sentiment  is  not  more  impressive  than  their  keen  wit  and 
practical  wisdom. 

This  primitive  acknowledgment  of  the  claims  of  good 
Practical  sense  is  the  germ  of  other  practical  services  with 
services.  which  history  must  accredit  the  Buddhists  :  as  the 
first  of  the  Hindus  to  use  written  signs  for  literary  pur- 
poses ;  3  as  the  earliest  popular  preachers  ;  as  creators  of 

1  The  Nepalese  Scriptures  contain  legends  of  the  Buddhist  contempt  of  Brahmanic  vices 
and  of   caste-pretensions,   worthy  of  the  highest  civilization  (Burnouf,   Buddhisme  Indien, 
p.  186).     Everywhere  Buddhism  has  abolished  a  priestly  caste.     In  Ceylon  caste  coexists  with 
other  forms  of  social  order,  the  state  admitting  all  these  on  equal  terms. 

2  See  his  Analysis  of  the  Panchatantra. 

8  The  first  mention  of  written  literature  in  Hindu  history  is  the  record  of  a  Buddhist  king, 
contemporary  with  Asoka,  who  used  it  to  provide  copies  of  works  for  the  preachers.  Wassi- 
lief,  p.  47  ;  note  from  Daranatha's  Thib.  Hist,  of  Buddhism. 


PRIMITIVE    BUDDHISM.  765 

the  drama  and  tale  in  India ;  as  intro'ducers  of  alphabets 
into  Corea  and  Japan  ;  and  as  the  organizers  of  social  life 
in  Central  Asia. 

In   their  early  schools  we  discern  the  seeds  of  that  intel- 
lectual culture  of  which  they  have  been  the  parents.   Germs  of 
It  is  ever  the  open,  not  the  closed  or  dreaming,  eye  ["^oj- 
that  these  sympathetic  workers  trust.     It  is  by  in-  ture. 
telligence  only  that  the  Buddha  (awakened  one)  lives  and 
conquers  and  saves  ;   it  is  by  intelligence  alone  that  the 
"  path  "  is  seen.    All  interests  in  life  are  to  give  way  to  the 
mental  effort  to  withdraw  the  faculties  from  the  dominion  of 
pain  and  decay.    They  must  be  fixed  in  contemplation  (dhy- 
anci]  till  that  illumination  comes  which  is  called  "prajnd;" 
"  making  the  sight  of  the  eye  needless  ;  a  lamp  in  dark- 
ness ;  medicine  for  all  suffering ;  a  safe  boat  to  cross  the 
sea  of  old  age,  disease,  and  death."1 

"  All  that  we  are  is  the  result  of  what  we  have  thought.  Reflection 
is  the  path  of  immortality,  thoughtlessness  the  path  of  death.  Let  the 
wise  man  guard  his  thoughts.  Of  those  who  are  freed  by  knowledge 
of  the  truth,  the  tempter  never  finds  the  way.  Than  a  hundred  years 
spent  without  insight  the  life  of  one  day  is  better,  if  a  man  sees  begin- 
ning and  end."  "  The  best  of  men  is  he  who  has  eyes  to  see."  2 

The  philosophy  of  Pain  was  not  yet  developed  into  the 
"  Twelve  Niddnas"  a  metaphysical  catena  tracing  the  pro- 
cess of  its  production  in  detail  ;  still  less,  into  the  doctrine 
of  illusion  as  involved  in  the  relation  of  consciousness  to 
its  objects:  a  result  of  one  of  the  most  subtle  and  refined 
discussions  in  the  history  of  thought.3  But  the  first  term 
of  all  this  speculation  was  already  there  in  the  doctrine 
that  ignorance  (avidhyd)  is  the  root  of  evil,  and  that  the 
soul  can  reach  a  science  that  utterly  dissipates  its  gloom. 
The  chain  of  -causal  sequence  is  felt  in  all  its  pressure, 

1  Sutra  of  Dying  Instruction.  *  Dhammapadd,.,  I.  21,  36,  57,  113,  273. 

3  See  Wassilief,  310-324. 


766  BELIEFS. 

though  not  analyzed  into  its  interlocking  links  of  destiny. 
Yet  the  "  path  "  through  it  is  seen  at  the  same  moment, 
and  the  Promethean  light  of  love  and  duty  points  forward 
to  release. 

Practically,  morally,  ideally,  intellectually,  then,  early 
Buddhism  contained  more  positive  than  negative  elements ; 
and  we  now  add  that  in  its  treatment  of  the  spiritual  laws 
and  demands  its  tone  was  equally  affirmative. 

It  is  a  disputed  question  whether  the  desire  of  annihila- 
^OH  belongs  pre-eminently  to  the  earliest  schools.1 
The  Buddhists,  as  feeling  so  intensely  the  miseries 
°f  existence,  would  naturally  be  more  engrossed  by 
oped.  the  immediate  method  of  release  than  by  the  study 
of  man's  ultimate  destiny.  The  logical  consequence  of 
their  theory  of  renunciation  would  hardly  be  traced  out  to 
an  absolute  principle,  nor  in  its  relation  to  every  form  of 
existence,  until  it  had  become  familiar  by  time.  The  oppo- 
site opinion  seems  to  be  based  on  an  etymology  of  Nir- 
vana as  the  favorite  expression  of  primitive  Buddhism,  for 
which  I  am  unable  to  find  any  ground  in  those  Sutras 
which  are  admitted  to  be  of  early  date.  The  meaning  of 
Nirvana  has  been  fully  discussed  in  a  previous  part  of  this 
work.2  It  may  be  added  that  "no  more  waving  (as  of 
wind) "  obviously  does  not  mean  absolute  extinction ;  and, 
even  when  illustrated  by  the  going  out  of  a  taper  by  ex- 
haustion, might  as  readily  refer  to  the  passions  and  attach- 
ments, which  were  held  to<  be  the  grounds  of  pain,  as  to 
existence  itself.  Speculations  on  unreality  and  "  the  void," 
which  come  nearest  to  the  logical  argument  for  extinc- 
tion of  being,  belong  to  the  later  metaphysical  schools 
of  the  Abhidharma,  not  to  the  early  Sutras  nor  to  the 
Vinaya. 

It  is  indeed  possible  that  vague  desires  of  escaping  per- 

1  Wassilief  asserts  that  it  does,  p.  93. 

2  Oriental  Religions,  India,  B.  III.  ch.  iii. 


PRIMITIVE    BUDDHISM.  767 

sonal  consciousness  may  have  attended  the  first  Instinctive 
keen  sense  of  the  impermanence  of  all  its  con-  desire  of 
tents,  of  the  decay  and  death  of  whatsoever  made 
it  most  dear,  yet  without  any  definite  idea  of 
what  should  succeed  it.  The  experience  is  a  natural 
one,  and  even  as  harsher  reaction  far  from  uncommon. 
"  Cursed  be  the  day  in  which  my  mother  begat  me,"  cries 
Job  in  his  despair.  One  who  throws  up  all  chances  for  the 
present  may  seem  to  himself  to  surrender  the  whole  future 
also,  while  in  fact  he  does  not  do  so.  Judged  by  the  keen- 
ness of  the  Aryan  and  Shemitic  sense  of  personal  identity, 
Buddhist  rejection  of  definite  thought  and  desire  would  be 
equivalent  to  a  cry  for  annihilation,  and  as  such  Burnouf 
and  others  do  not  hesitate  to  regard  it.1  That  a  fair  inter- 
pretation of  Oriental  consciousness  does  not  require  such 
inference  may  be  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  kanna  (that 
organized  moral  result  of  life  which  alone  remains  after 
death  in  the  transitions  of  transmigration)  is  positively 
declared  to  be  not  the  same  soul,  but  a  new  person  ;  while, 
notwithstanding,  the  change  is  dreaded  or  desired  as  if  for 
the  same  person,  and  Buddhist  works  are  full  of  legends 
and  discourses  by  saints  relating  to  their  own  previous 
lives.  In  these  cases  annihilation,  however  strongly  as- 
serted or  implied,  is  evidently  apparent  only  ;  at  least  in 
our  sense  of  the  word. 

In   all  the  earlier  treatises,  and  most  of  the  later,  Nir- 
vana is  described  in  cordial  and  endearing  forms  of 

Nirvana 

speech,2  and  a  vivid  imagination  expends  itself  in 
enumerating  its  joys.     All  nations  have  associated 
destruction  with  darkness  ;  but  Nirvana  is  always  ence  and 
illumination.     It  is  even  immortality.3 

1  Lotus  of  the  Good  Law. 

2  See  extracts  from  the  Dha.mmapa.dant  in  the  author's  chapter  on  Nirvana  (Indict^  as 
above). 

3  Buddhagosha,    the  great  Buddhist  commentator,  translates  Amrita,  the  nectar  of  im- 
mortality, by  the  word  Nirvana  (Mutter's  Dhammaf>.,  p.  63).     This  is  the  element  of  early 
Buddhism,  which  Kardwick  (n.,  95)  considers  "  cold,  dreary,  and  abstract." 


768  BELIEFS. 

The  whole  struggle  of  Buddhism  was  to  escape  the  un- 
real ;  and  this  is  of  itself  the  strongest  possible  confession 
of  belief  in  a  real.  The  steady  movement  by  which  the 
conception  of  Nirvana  became  more  and  more  distinctly 
positive,  till  it  ended  in  the  clear  assertion  of  Nagasena, 
"  Great  King,  Nirvana  is,"  l  -sufficiently  indicates  its  tend- 
encies. Ma-touan-lin  says  the  Buddhists  and  Tao-sse  mean 
by  nihility  "  undisturbed  repose,  stillness,  and  peace."  2 

"  In  what,"  asks  a  recent  writer,  "  could  the  reform  of 
in  what  Buddha  have  consisted  if  not  in  affirming  annihila- 

refom*'8  tion'  s*nce  a1^  the  rest  hac*  keen  proclaimed  before 
consisted,  him  by  Kapila  and  the  Brahmans  ?  "  3  I  reply  :  In 
a  reformation  of  the  spirit  and  the  moral  sense  ;  in  a  protest 
against  isolation,  asceticism,  worship  of  an  outside  Creator 
and  Lord  ;  and,  in  a  far  keener  sense  than  earlier  creeds,  of 
the  miseries  involved  in  definite  experiences,  which  is  an- 
other thing  from  definite  desire  of  utter  extinction  for  all 
forms  of  being.4 

It  is  impossible  to  reconcile  the  Buddhist  descriptions  of 
Nirvana  Nirvana  until  we  bring  in  view  the  pantheistic  idea 
-  from  which  thev  start>  °f  the  identity  of  the  essen- 
tial  soul  in  every  person  with  the  eternal  and  infin- 
ite. The  ground  of  personal  destructibility  is  always  rep- 
resented as  referable  to  the  law,  that  whatever  is  composite 
may  and  must  be  dissolved.  All  arguments  for  "  extinc- 
tion "  proceed  from  this  premise,  which  implies  the  demand 
for  somewhat  simple,  and  so  eternal,  as  the  true  life. 
Every  conceivable  form  must  perish,  leaving  a  "  void," 
which  is  Nirvana  ;  but  this  very  void,  if  for  no  other 
reason  than  that  all  results  of  composition  are  got  rid  of, 
must  be  that  reality  which  in  its  essence  the  soul  con- 

1  Prajna.  Paramitd..  *  Neumann,  Catech.  Sham.,  p.  40. 

3  Carre,  L1  Ancien  Orient,  II.,  p.  223. 

*  Wurm  (Inciisch.  Relig.,  p.  169)  insists  on  a  triple  Nirvana,  "  simple,  complete,  and 
great  complete,"  to  the  first  of  which  Carre  thinks  Obry  is  confined.  But  this  solution  of  the 
whole  history  of  the  word  does  not  touch  our  position  relative  to  the  early  forms  of  Buddhism. 


PRIMITIVE    BUDDHISM.  769 

fessedly  is.  This  view  is  guaranteed  in  the  fact  that 
Nirvana  is  called  the  highest  science,  the  result  of  profound 
meditation  ;  since  otherwise,  the  very  product  of  the  soul 
would  thus  be  supposed  capable  of  destroying  it,  —  a  notion 
too  absurd  to  ascribe  to  a  mind  like  Sakya's,  and  a  hundred 
generations  of  his  followers.  Nothing  can  be  more  explicit 
than  some  of  the  more  elaborate  Sutras,  to  the  effect  that 
the  soul,  instead  of  being  reduced  to  nothing  by  Nirvana, 
becomes  the  substance  of  every  thing.  "  Illustrious  disciple, 
whatever  male  or  female  disciple  of  mine  is  able  to  realize  the 
impermanence  of  the  five  skandJias  (organized  elements  of 
mind  and  body),  he  or  she  has  arrived  at  the  condition  of 
permanence.  Because  Tathagata  has  entirely  got  rid  of  the 
subjects  of  impermanence  composing  the  body,  therefore 
his  body  is  permanent,  and  therefore  boundless'.' J 

"  The  Modern   Buddhist  "   naturally  observes  :    "  If  we 
were  to  believe  that  death  is  annihilation,  we  should  A  «« Mod- 
be  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  existence  of  man.  ern  B^d- 
'  All   of   you,'    says    Buddha,    'who    are    in  doubt  immortai- 
whether  there  is  a  future  life,  had  better  believe  ily- 
there  is  one  ;  you  will  then  abandon  sin  and  act  virtuously, 
and  if  there  should  be  no  result,  such  a  life  will  bring  a 
good  name  and  the  regard  of  men.'  "  2      A  questionable 
form  of  reasoning  it  may  be,  but  clear  evidence  enough 
of    the   animus    of    the   faith,3    especially  in    its    earliest 
epochs. 

Further  evidences  of  the  spiritual  negativity  of  early 
Buddhism  have  been  drawn  from  its  rejection  of  Other  ele. 
an  Iswara  (Lord)  ;  from  its  reduction  of  Brahma  mentsof 

, .    .  ,    „     ,  .  early  Bud- 

the  Supreme  to  the  conditions  of  finite  existence  ;  dhism 

from  its  denials  of  a  creation  or  end  of  the  world,  wrons1y 

and  of  a  personal  First  Cause.    But  these  negations  "merene- 

were  simply  the  reverse  side  of  an  intense  positive  satlons-" 

1  Parinirvana  Sutra  (Real's  Catena,  pp.  175,  184).  Also  Bastian,  Verkettung  d. 
B-uddh.  (Zeitsch.  d.  D.  M  G-,  XXIX.  73)  who  calls  Nirvana  the  "existence  of  the  thing-in- 
itself."  2  Wheel  of  the  Law,  pp.  41,  42. 

3  See  also  the  Surangama  Sutra,  in  Beal's  Catena. 

49 


77O  BELIEFS. 

realization  of  the  cosmical  facts  and  laws  as  valid  in  them- 
selves, —  and  of  the  impossibility  of  reaching  a  beginning 
or  end  in  an  infinite  series  of  cycles,  whose  whole  meaning 
is  as  completely  centred  in  the  present  moment  as  in  any 
previous  point.  It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  such  denials 
are  irreligious  or  unspiritual,  merely  because  they  refuse 
worship  to  an  individual  God  separate  from  the  universe 
of  soul  and  sense.  Whatsoever  of  intimacy,  guidance,  or 
help,  apart  from  intervention  by  miracle  or  caprice,  can  be 
expressed  by  the  term  Fatherhood,  is  in  substance  realiza- 
ble in  terms  of  Universal  Law  in  proportion  as  we  learn 
those  essential  relations  of  world-order,  of  which  "  love  "  and 
"  wisdom  "  are  but  the  human  and  finite  expression.  Hav- 
ing this  sense  of  the  benignity  of  world-order  as  a  whole, 
did  the  Buddhist  need  to  go  behind  it  ?  Of  what  value 
would  it  be  to  ascribe  these  to  an  Iswdra,  or  outside  Provi- 
Noneed  dence,  if  they  are  already  held  to  be  involved  in  the 
°araa"  nature  of  the  world  itself  which  He  is  supposed  to 
(Lord).  govern  ?  And  they  must  be  so  if  they  exist  at  all. 
The  sense  of  the  Infinite  is  not  lost  in  the  Buddhist  "  nega- 
tion," but  referred  to  inherent  forces  instead  of  fortuitous 
and  external  ones.  That  sense  has  never  been  more 
thoroughly  brought  into  play  than  in  the  numerical  con- 
structions of  Buddhism,  —  whether  its  innumerable  worlds 
of  natural  development,  or  its  series  of  Buddhas  without 
beginning  or  end. 

The  moral  order  (karma}  is  conceived  as  penetrating  all 
The  Moral  worlds  and  beings,  sole  survivor  of  world-collapse, 
Law  of  the  the  breath  that  stirs  in  the  void  with  new  creative 
power  proceeding  from  the  highest  heavens  of 
virtue  (dhyanas),  where  it  survives  all  change,  adequate 
for  ever  to  clothe  living  souls  in  bodies  like  the  sun,  and  to 
serve  as  seed  of  coming  evolutions.1  This  ethical  sover- 
eignty is  the  central  idea  of  Buddhist  cosmogony,  and  it  is 

1  See  Seal's  Catena,  pp.  106,  107 ;  Wurm's  Gesch.  d.  Ind.  Relig.,  p.  163. 


PRIMITIVE    BUDDHISM.  771 

developed  from  the  intense  moral  instinct  which  consti- 
tuted the  primitive  germ  of  the  faith.  Neither  priestly 
caste,  nor  exclusive  church,  nor  sacrificial  rite,  nor  per- 
sonal prayer,  nor  vicarious  atonement  for  sin,  com-  simplicity 
plicated  the  simple  and  earnest  reformation,  whose  ofprimi- 

tive  Budd- 

appeal  for  all  that  these  things  are  elsewhere  sup-  histap- 
posed  to  bring  was  made  purely  to  man's  own  pri-  peah 
vate  endeavor  to  put  inward  right  in  place  of  moral  wrong, 
—  the  noble  nature  against  the  mean  ;  and  to  the  service, 
not  of  a  mediator  or  redeemer,1  but  of  men  who  come  ever 
as  the  hour  needs,  and  who  work  not  by  substitution,  but 
by  teaching  and  example,  and  by  the  inherent  forces  and 
tendencies  of  nature  to  good  beyond  evil. 

Such  is  a  brief  summary  of  the  positive  elements  which 
relieve  primitive  Buddhism  —  if  we  may  use  the  term  to 
express  the  earlier  forms  of  this  movement  —  from  the 
charge  of  feeding  man  on  the  wind  of  negation  and 
despair. 

The  Sutra  of  the  Forty-two  Sections,2  already  noticed 
as    translated   into  Chinese  as   early  as   the  first  Extracts 
century,  though  here  and  there  showing  signs  of   «Forty_ 
later  elaboration,  yet  fairly  illustrates  the  character  two  Set> 

,     ,  .      .  ,  .  tions" 

of  the  period  now  under  review.  Sutra. 

"  Buddha  thought  within  himself :  '  The  extinction  of  desire  is 
the  real  self-conquest.  To  be  fixed  in  spiritual  contemplation  is  to 
conquer  the  power  of  evil.' 

"  Buddha  said  :  '  A  day's  meditation  is  blessedness.  Let  one  look 
on  heaven  and  earth,  and  think,  These  shall  pass  away,  and  the 
mind  becomes  at  once  illumined.  Weary  not  of  meditation.  Bodily 
elements  are  but  as  names  ;  what  we  call  self  is  but  a  passing  guest  ; 
its  concerns  are  like  the  mirage.  As  the  fragrance  of  incense  con- 
sumes itself,  so  with  the  search  for  carnal  desires  and  the  repentance 

1  Wurm  (p.  156)  wrongly  describes  Buddha  as  a  "  Mediator,"  in  the  exclusive  personal 
sense. 

2  Beal's  Catena 


772 


BELIEFS. 


that  follows  it.  The  rude  grasp  after  wealth  is  like  a  child's  eating 
honey  with  a  knife  With  the  first  taste  of  sweetness  comes  the  pain 
of  wounds.  Lust  and  desire  are  like  running  with  a  torch  against  the 
wind,  which  blows  back  the  flame  to  burn  the  hand  of  the  holder. 
True  religion  is  like  bringing  a  lighted  torch  into  a  dark  house,  —  the 
darkness  is  ended,  and  all  is  bright.  How  great  the  light  of  truth  ! ' 

"  Lust  and  desire  are  like  a  vase  of  foul  water,  where  one  has  placed 
beautiful  things,  which  the  muddiness  hides  from  sight.  Once  purify 
the  heart,  and  we  behold  the  spiritual  part  which  we  had  from  the 
beginning,  though  involved  in  the  nature  of  life  and  death  ;  then  mount 
we  to  the  blessed  land  of  the  Buddhas,  where  virtue  and  wisdom  abide 
for  ever.  Lust  and  desire  bring  sorroW,  and  then  a  guilty  fear. 

"Ten  things  are  evil:  murder,  theft,  lust,  are  evils  of  the  body; 
evasion,  slander,  lying,  flattery,  of  the  speech  ;  envy,  anger,  delusion, 
of  the  thought.  Thou  must  not  kill,  nor  steal,  nor  commit  adultery, 
nor  lie,  nor  be  drunken.  Avoid  dancing,  theatres,  high  seats,  covet- 
ousness,  costly  dresses,  and  perfumes. 

"  A  religious  man  has  his  griefs  as  well  as  an  irreligious  one.  What 
is  goodness  ?  It  is,  above  all  things,  agreement  of  the  will  with  the 
conscience.  Who  is  the  great  man  ?  He  who  has  most  patience  in 
bearing  injury,  and  who  maintains  a  blameless  life.  Who  is  he  that 
deserves  veneration  ?  He  whose  heart  is  pure  and  calm,  and  in  all 
things  wise,  even  in  future  things  :  he  is  in  the  light. 

"  A  man  sat  on  knives  to  appease  his  lusts.  Buddha  said  :  '  Though 
you  mutilate  yourself  to  escape  the  outward  cause,  it  is  not  to  be  com- 
pared with  destroying  the  evil  inclination.  The  heart  is  the  busy  con- 
triver of  these  lusts.  Even  as  this  deluded  man,  do  most  men  think.' 

"  When  thou  givest  alms  (to  the  saint),  do  so  from  the  motive  of 
religious  duty,  and  to  advance  the  cause  of  righteousness.  To  feed 
crowds  is  not  to  be  compared  with  feeding  one  good  man.  It  is  in- 
finitely better  than  attending  to  questions  about  heaven  and  earth, 
demons  and  spirits.  All  these  are  not  to  be  compared  to  the  duties 
we  owe  our  parents. 

"  There  are  twenty  difficult  things  :  To  be  poor,  yet  charitable  ;  to 
be  rich,  yet  religious  ;  to  escape  destiny  ;  to  see  the  words  of  Buddha  ; 
to  be  born  when  a  Buddha  is  in  the  world  ;  to  repress  lust ;  to  see  an 
agreeable  thing  and  not  desire  it ;  to  be  strong  and  not  rash  ;  to  be  in- 
sulted and  not  angry  ;  to  live  in  contact  with  the  world,  yet  without 
desiring  to  possess  it ;  to  investigate  things  to  the  bottom  ;  not  to 
despise  the  ignorant ;  to  root  out  self-complacency  ;  to  be  learned 
and  yet  good  ;  to  look  at  the  hidden  principle  behind  professions  ;  to 
attain  and  not  be  exalted ;  to  use  means  wisely  ;  to  save  men  by 


PRIMITIVE    BUDDHISfo.  773 

changing  their  hearts  ;  to  be  the  same  in  heart  and  life  ;  to  avoid 
dispute. 

"  The  more  evil  done  me  by  another,  the  more  good  shall  go  from 
me  to  him  :  the  fragrance  is  for  me  ;  the  harm  of  the  slander  will  fall 
on  the  offender. 

"  One  who  obeys  principle  is  like  a  single  warrior  who  is  opposed 
to  ten  thousand  ;  who  wins  the  victory,  even  when  he  falls,  being 
brought  home  to  his  own  country. 

"  He  who  is  guilty  of  a  crime  without  repentance  will  as  surely 
return  in  bodily  shape  (after  death),  as  water  returns  to  the  sea  ;  as 
the  shadow  follows  the  substance,  so  misery  follows  sin  :  but  if  he 
purify  himself  of  evil  ways,  he  shall,  after  penalty,  attain  the  supreme 
Way. 

"  He  is  a  true  Sramana,  who  leaves  all  for  religion,  penetrates  to 
the  secrets  of  his  own  heart,  and  reveals  in  himself  the  law  which 
knows  no  selfish  thought. 

"  I  regard  the  dignity  of  kings  as  motes  in  the  sunbeam  ;  gold  and 
jewels  as  broken  platters  ;  silken  dresses  as  silk  rags  ;  millions  of 
worlds  as  the  earth  alone  ;  and  the  four  great  rivers  as  the  mire 
beneath  my  feet.  The  forms  of  religion  are  but  rafts  to  bear  over  the 
treasure.  To  long  for  Nirvana  is  as  watching  by  day  and  night." 

I  add  extracts  from  the  Kudddka-Pdtha,  a  Ceylonese 
Sutra  of  great  reputation,  and  very  ancient,  as  From  the 
appears  from  its  preceding  the  Dhammapadam  in  K«ddaka 

.        -n    T    c-       •     x.  Patha. 

the  Pali  Scriptures  :  — 

"  To  serve  wise  men  and  not  foolish ;  to  give  honor  to  whom 
honor  is  due  ;  to  dwell  in  a  pleasant  land ;  to  have  done  The 
good  deeds  in  a  previous  existence  ;  to  be  filled  with  right  Blessing, 
desires  ;  to  succor  father  and  mother ;  to  cherish  wife  and  child  ;  to 
follow  a  peaceful  calling  ;  to  cease  from  sin  ;  to  be  diligent  in  good 
deeds,  temperance,  and  Chastity  ;  discernment  of  the  Four  Truths  ; 
the  prospect  of  Nirvana  ;  the  soul  of  one  unshaken  by  the  changes 
of  this  life,  inaccessible  to  sorrow,  passionless,  secure;  —  these  are 
the  greatest  blessings.  They  that  do  these  things  are  invincible  on 
every  side  ;  on  every  side  they  walk  in  safety ;  yea,  theirs  is  the 
greatest  blessing." 

"  There  is  a  treasure  laid  up  in  the  heart,  a  treasure  of  charity, 
piety,  temperance,  soberness.  It  is  found  in  the  sacred  shrine,  The  Trea- 
in  the  priestly  assembly,  in  the  individual  man,  in  the  stran-  sure- 


7/4  BELIEFS. 

ger  and  sojourner,  in  the  father,  the  mother,  the  elder  brother :  a 
treasure  impregnable,  that  cannot  pass  away.  When  a  man  leaves  the 
fleeting  world,  this  he  takes  with  him  beyond  death.  Let  the  wise 
man  practise  virtue  that  follows  him  after  death  ;  treasure  that  gives 
delight  to  gods  and  men.  Grace  and  beauty,  pleasure  and  pomp,  all 
these  it  can  procure  ;  all  prosperity,  all  pleasure,  the  full  attainment 
of  Nirv&Ha,  supreme  Buhddahood,  —  all  these  it  can  procure. 

IX.  "  Let  one  who  has  gained  knowledge  of  the  tranquillity  of 
The  holy  Nirvana  be  diligent,  upright,  conscientious,  gentle,  not  vain- 
life,  glorious  ;  contented  and  cheerful,  not  oppressed  with  cares, 
not  burdened  with  riches,  not  arrogant,  not  greedy  for  gifts.  Let  him 
not  do  any  mean  action,  for  which  others  might  reprove  him.  Let 
all  creatures  be  of  joyful  mind,  whether  seen  or  unseen,  far  or  near. 
Let  no  man  deceive  another;  nor,  from  anger,  even  wish  ill  to  his 
neighbor. 

"  As  a  mother,  as  long  as  she  lives,  watches  over  her  only  child,  so 
among  all  beings  let  boundless  good-will  prevail,  unmixed  with  enmity, 
throughout  the  world.  If  a  man  be  of  this  mind,  so  long  as  he  be 
awake,  standing  or  walking,  sitting  or  lying,  —  then  is  come  to  pass 
the  saying,  *  This  is  the  place  of  holiness.'  " 


II.   THE  HINAYANA  SCHOOL. 

The  moral  ardor  of  primitive  Buddhism  was  seconded 
Second      by   3.n    equally   earnest   metaphysic.     The  "  Four 
Buddhism.  Verities  "    were    bound    together    in   a   chain    of 
logical   causation  known  as  the  Twelve  Niddnas, 
which  are  regarded  as  marking  the  second  stage 


of  the  movement.  In  these,  without  attempt  to  solve 
the  problem  of  ultimate  cause,  with  which  Buddhism 
has  nothing  to  do,  impermanence  is  treated  as  the 
existing  fact,  and  its  conditions  in  the  consciousness 
traced  as  a  process  of  evolution,  in  order  to  remove  it  by 
dealing  directly  with  its  inmost  root  and  ground.  In  sub- 
stance, things  are  what  mind  makes  them  ;  and  as  their 
evil  is  thought  into  being,  so  it  can  be  thought  away  :  thus 
fate  can  be  turned  to  freedom,  and  pain  to  peace. 


THE    HINAYANA. 

Death  is  the  necessary  result  of  birth ;  and  birth 
on  the  deeper  fact  of  definite  existence  as  such.  A  logical' J 
But  this  again  depends  on  attachment,  desire,  con-  chain 
tact  with  senses  ;  whose  basis,  as  name  and  form,  is  in 
the  conscious  apprehension.  Thus  we  are  referred  to  the 
character  of  mental  conceptions,  the  root  of  which  is  illu- 
sion, or  ignorance.  To  realize  that  mental  illusion  is  the 
evil  to  be  removed,  is  to  recognize  that  pursuit  of  true 
knowledge  by  study  of  thought  as  an  essence  is  the  way 
to  remove  it.  And  the  grand  conclusion  follows,  that  med- 
itation on  truth  shall  attain  truth  ;  delivering  man  from 
the  whole  chain  of  causes  on  which  impermanence  depends, 
both  in  the  present  life  and  in  the  transmigrations  that 
grow  out  of  it,  and  bringing  the  ever-recurring  cycles  of 
pain  to  an  end.1  Without  dwelling  minutely  on  the  links 
in  this  logical  chain,  or  attempting  to  define  subtle  dis- 
tinctions in  the  meaning  of  terms,  which  are  the  more 
obscure  from  the  difficulty  we  have  in  entering  into  Ori- 
ental experience,  we  may  notice  especially  two  things. 
The  first  is,  that  the  whole  series  relates  to  essential  mean- 
ings, not  to  outward  phenomena;  that  "desire,"  as  dealing 
a  niddna,  is  not  a  special  form  of  wish,  but  the  withmeta- 

L  physical 

attraction  of  mind  itself  to  definite  objects  ;  that  causes 
"  apprehension  "  is  not  a  kind  of  thought,  but  thought  itself 
considered  as  perception ;  that  "  illusion  "  is  not  such  spe- 
cial fancy  as  that  the  long  cloud-lines  of  the  evening  sky 
are  islands  in  a  distant  sea,  and  the  shining  crescent  in  its 
depths  is  a  sailing  ship,  but  a  necessity  involved  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  objects  considered  as  external  to  the  mind. 
And  the  second  thing  we  notice  is,  that  the  substance  of 
all  this  abstraction  is  positive.  He  who  would 

and  posi- 

abolish  the  illusion  of  ignorance  must  be  pursuing  tivereaii- 
knowledge,  as  he  who  is  trying  to  escape  blindness   ties- 

1  See  Burnouf;  Intr.  a  P Hist,  du  Boudd.  Indien,  pp.  432-451  (Biblioth.  Orient  ed.). 
Foucaux's  Lalita-Visiara,  p.  531 ;  Lassen  ;  Koeppen  ;  Wurm,  GescA.  d.  Ind.  Rel.,  p.  203  ; 
Wheel  of  the  Law;  Speuce  Hardy. 


776  BELIEFS. 

is  really  trying  to  see.  The  very  existence  of  the  niddna 
chain  is  the  guarantee  that  what  Buddhism  sought  was 
reality  and  freedom. 

It  followed  up  its  conviction  of  the  end  to  be  pursued 
bv  searching  out  the  philosophy  of  experience  on 

Grounds  -J  3  r 

of  trans-  which  the  movement  must  proceed.  In  the  same 
manner>  ^  formulized  the  grounds  of  transmigra- 
tion  by  its  "  five  skandhas" —  attributes  of  individ- 
ual being,  in  which  consciousness  and  its  illusory 
self-projection  in  emotions  and  desires  are  presented  as  the 
conditions  of  sensation,  perception,  and  form.  Thus  are 
provided  elements  of  discussion  as  to  whether  the  ego 
exists  distinct  from  these  skandhas,  or  is  made  up  of  them 
and  shares  their  illusoriness  and  their  transience.  How- 
ever destructive  of  definite  form,  here  is  at  least  a  meta- 
physical process  which  pursues  recognized  facts  and  forms 
into  their  subtlest  relations.  Mind  is  affirmed  the  sub- 
stance of  things,  and  ignorance  and  delusion  are  renounced 
as  the  soul  of  evil. 

A  similar  passage  from  the  moral  to  the  metaphysical 
formed  the  second  stage  of  Christianity.     In  both 

Similar  .          .  ... 

transition  cases  we  see  the  religious  instinct  justifying  itself 
moTaUo  ky  seeking  a  positive  basis  in  the  laws  of  human 
themeta-  nature  and  experience.  Buddhism  was  meant  to 
L  early  be,  not  a  mere  attraction  to  given  ends,  but  also  a 
Christian-  philosophy  ;  and  every  step  insists  on  a  universal 
principle  as  the  motive  to  integrity,  study,  and 
growth.  The  intense  realization  with  which  it  grasps  the 
facts  of  sorrow  and  death  makes  this  philosophy  more  than 
a  piece  of  metaphysical  construction.  It  is  earnest,  heroic, 
tragical. 

The  philosophical  element,  inherited  like  so  many  others 
Phiio-  from  Brahmanism,  was  vigorous  in  the  early  stages 
sophicai  Of  Buddhist  reform.  "  It  is  even  claimed  by  be- 

energy  of 

early  lievers  that  all  the  three  Pitdkas,  or  Caskets  of 
Buddhism.  the  Faith^  _  Sutras  (precepts),  Vinaya  (discipline), 


THE    HINAYANA.  777 

and  Abhidharma  (speculative  doctrine),  —  were  already  ex- 
tant at  the  death  of  Buddha,  and  canonically  recognized  at 
the  First  Council,  held  at  that  time.1  However  incredible 
this  statement,  there  is  no  dispute  among  them  as  to  the 
fact  that  eighteen  schools  were  represented  at  the  Second 
Council  only  a  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  the 
teacher.  Less  speculative  than  those  which  succeeded 
them,  they  were  called  by  the  latter  Hindyana  Dates  of 
(smaller  conveyance).  But  at  the  grand  Kashmi- the  schools- 
rian  Council,  held  by  the  Indo-Scythian  King  Kanishka, 
about  40  B.  c.,  the  schools  of  the  Mahdyana  (larger  con- 
veyance) are  found  fully  organized ;  and  all  the  sects  are 
reconciled  in  the  universality  of  Sakya's  principles  and 
aims.2 

What  were  the  Hinayana  schools  ?  We  hear  of  but  one 
great  dispute  concerning  discipline.3  It  grew  outThe«Hin 
of  a  desire  to  relax  the  stringent  rules  against  syana" 
eating,  drinking,  and  living  after  the  ways  of  the  sc 
world,  and  to  show  leniency  towards  weaker  brethren.4  The 
result  —  as  in  the  Christian  Church  on  the  analogous  ques- 
tion of  eating  meat  offered  to  idols,  and  receiving  the  uncir- 
cumcised — was  a  serious  schism.  Like  Peter  and  Paul  at 
Jerusalem,  the  old  Buddhists  and  the  new  were  apparently 
reconciled  at  Asoka's  Council  (Third),  in  the  third  century 
after  Buddha. 

Nor  did  the  Hinayana  schools  concern  themselves  about 
the  authority  of  special  discourses,  although  for  centuries 

1  See  Wurm,  p.  142. 

2  Wassilief,  p.  77.     Eitel,  whose  drift  is  towards  ascribing  Buddhist  achievements  to  Chris- 
tian forerunners,  speaks  of  the  canon    of  Kanishka' s  Council  as  a  few  books  of  uncertain 
extent.     But  Matouanlin  gives  a  long  list  of  books  and  priests  as  arriving  from  India  in  early 
times,  and  the    most  important   Hinayana  works  had   been   translated    into   Chinese  in  the 
first  century.     (Wylie,  p.    164.)     Eighteen  missionaries  were  sent  to  China  in  Asoka's  time, 
250  B.C.     The  Kashmir  Council  was  called  for  the  express  purpose  of  legitimating  the  Mah- 
dyana doctrine  of  Nagarjuna,  whom  all  tradition  places  as  early  as  two  centuries  B.  c.     See 
Wassil.,  pp.  31,  32. 

3  Wassil.,  p.  17. 

*  Pallad.  Arb.  d.  Russ.  Gesellsck.  zu  Peking,  II.  283. 


778  BELIEFS. 

all  Sutras  ascribed  to  Buddha  must  have  been  preserved  in 
the  memory  alone.1  Not  the  reception,  but  the  interpreta- 
tion, of  Sutras  was  the  main  point  of  discussion ;  the  doc- 
trine to  be  based  on  them.2  Whether  the  chief  speculative 
compositions  date  before  Asoka  or  not,  their  main  tenden- 
cies were  in  full  career  at  his  council, — which  was  the 
Nicaean  of  Buddhism,  —  and  definitely  settled  its  canon.3 
This  rapidity  of  speculative  development  is  interesting,  as 
showing  the  depth  and  strength  of  the  moral  current ; 
which  carried  the  intellectual  along  with  it. 

The  Hinayana  schools  applied  Buddha's  principles  (i) 
to  questions  relating  to  his  earthly  life, — whether 
points  of  this  was  humanly  actual  and  natural ;  whether  his 
Ion*  words  were  or  were  not  inherently  true  and  saving, 
even  where  they  appeared  contradictory,  and  whether  his 
person  was  to  be  numbered  with  those  of  his  followers  ; 
(2)  to  scholastic  analyses  of  the  elements  of  experience, 
which  had  to  be  crucially  tested  and  distributed  into 
numerous  formulas  according  to  their  fitness  to  be  accepted 
or  rejected,4  of  stages  in  the  renunciative  process  and  the 
organs  and  forces  to  be  employed  therein,  and  of  the  pre- 
cise relations  of  the  Arhats  (higher  saints)  to  human  weak- 
nesses, doubts,  progress  ;  (3)  to  the  pregnant  questions, 
whether  the  chains  of  existence  can  be  escaped  by  morality 
alone,  and  what  are  the  nature  and  limits  of  contemplation  ; 
and  from  these  they  plunged  (4)  into  problems  of  ontology, 
of  real  and  unreal,  not  now  in  the  sense  of  value  but  of 
essential  truth  and  falsity  ;  such  as  whether  matter  and 
time  are  real  ;  whether  there  is  an  external  world,  and 
whether  it  be  composed  of  atoms  ;  whether  there  is  a  life 
beyond  the  dissolution  of  the  skandhas  (elements  of  visible 

1  The  first  signs  of  the  use  of  writing  for  the  purpose  are  in  the  time  of  Panini,  third 
century  B.  c.  (Wassil.,  pp.  26-47). 

2  Ibid.,  p.   61. 

3  Lassen,  II.  458;  Koeppen,  I.  185  ;  Burnouf,  521. 

*  These  rejected  elements  are  supposed  by  Wassilief  to  be  the  Four  Verities.  (?) 


THE    HINAYANA.  779 

individuality) ;  and  even  whether  the  ego  itself  has  a  real 
and  positive  being.1 

The  results  of  these  speculations  were  of  course  largely 
negative,  as  regards  the  productive  values  of  life  in  Affirmative 
our  sense  of  the  words;  but  strikingly  affirmative  andnega- 
in  the  emphasis  laid  by  their  earnestness,  logical  tl 
energy,  and  rich  resources  on  those  very  faculties  which 
they  are  supposed  to  have  denied  and  sought  to  destroy  ; 
and  in  their  bearing,  not  on  abstract  thinking  alone,  but  on 
matters  of  heart  and  conscience,  and  religious  aim.  Some 
of  these  old  Abhidharma  treatises  expound  "  wisdom  ; " 
others  dialectic,  terminology,  dogmatics,  religion.  The 
Agamas  of  these  busy  schools,  like  the  Hagada  of  the 
Talmudists,  enter  into  full  illustrations  of  morality,  logic, 
metaphysic,  by  abundant  mythology  and  verse.2 

In  the  mean  time  the  Buddha-life  becomes  Buddhaship, 
deriving  a  certain  exclusiveness  from  these  Intel-  Formation 
lectual  ideals.  The  number  of  Buddhas  is  limited  of  a.per- 

sonal  my- 

to  seven,  and  the  biographical  legend  is  shaped  on  thoiogy. 
a  prescribed  mythic  model ;  a  kind  of  Messianic  idea. 

The  Vaibashika  and  Sutrantika  schools,  the  two  main 
divisions  of  the  (Kashmirian)  Hinayana,3  differed  on   Realistic 
the  relation  of  the  mind  to  the  world  ;  the  former  ™dlde 
holding   perception    to    be    immediate,    the    latter  schools, 
mediate  ;  4  the  former  recognizing  reality  both  in  the  abso- 
lute and  in  the  individual,  and  holding  the  uncompounded 
as  eternal,  while  the  latter  laid  special  emphasis  on   the 
idea  that  the  form  of  "  knowledge  "  is  imposed  on  things 
by  the  mind.     The  one  regarded  Buddha's  body  as  that  of 
a  common   mortal  ;  the  other  maintained   the  equality  of 
Buddhas  in  dignity;  and  had  also  a  foregleam  of  modern 


1  This  series  of  Hinayana  questions  is  carefully  condensed  from  Wassilief,  who  has  given 
the  only  trustworthy  summary  we  possess. 

2  See  especially  translation  given  in  Wassil.,  pp.  ioq,  117. 

*  Wurm,  p.  201.  *  Wassil.,  p.  40- 


780  BELIEFS. 

science,  in  an  earlier  theory  of  monads,  or  atoms  not  in 
contact.1 

Far  from  defeating  the  practical  exhortations  to  follow 
Practical  good  sense  and  right  use  of  circumstances  with 
which  they  were  at  first  associated,  these  specu- 
lations,  however  ominous  of  negation,  seemed  to 
lend  more  energy  to  the  opposite  pole  of  interest  in  the 
concerns  of  this  world.  The  land  rang  with  debates  ;  and 
these  intellectual  tourneys  in  India  involved  the  stake  of 
doctrinal  confession  and  even  of  life,  one  or  the  other  of 
which  had  to  be  surrendered  as  the  penalty  of  defeat2 
What  an  earnest  business  was  argument  in  that  world  of 
dreams !  There  is  a  legend  of  a  scholar,  who  every  day 
composed  a  gatha  containing  the  substance  of  that  day's 
teaching,  wrote  it  on  a  copper  tablet,  and  sent  it  forth  on 
the  head  of  a  wild  elephant,  challenging  by  drum-head  all 
the  world  to  dispute  its  doctrine  ;  and  who  thus  composed 
six  hundred  Abidharma  verses.  Such  faith  in  discussions 
held  itself  open  to  accept  all  new  opinions  which  com- 
mended themselves  to  the  sense  of  truth.  At  the  Council 
of  Vaigali,  the  thesis  was  offered  that  the  only  exclusive 
doctrine  of  Buddha  was  that  which  did  not  contradict 
reason.3 

Monastic  life  gathered  believers  into  a  world  wit/tin  the 
world,  rather  than  without ;    full  of  earnest  func- 

And  of 

monastic  tions  and  motives.  The  literary  labors  of  the 
monks  were  not  speculative  only :  they  expanded 
the  Vinaya  prohibitions  so  as  to  cover  manifold  forms  of 
possible  evil,  analyzed  down  to  the  minute  differences  of 
method  to  be  employed  on  each  ;  and  worked  out  regula- 
tions of  dress,  manners,  disciplines,  vows,  occupation,  re- 
lations with  the  world,  and  with  one  another.4  All  this 

1  Wassil.,  pp.  275-284. 

2  It  is  even  on  record  that  the  conquered  party  was  to  throw  himself  into  the  river,  or 
become  the  slave  of  the  victor,  or  adopt  his  religion.     Wassil.,  p.  67. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  219.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  80-85. 


THE    HINAYANA.  78 1 

aimed  at  an  end  beyond  itself,  practical  and  universal.     Its 
field  was   the  human  race.     The  Hinayana  period  Missionary 
was  that  of  the  expansion  of  the  faith.     This  great  ardor> 
"  unreal "  world  was  the  sphere  of  a  missionary  ardor  which 
spread  the  gospel  of  Pity  and  Release  over  Kashmir,  Nepal, 
Ceylon,   and  even  to   distant   China.1     The  many  contra- 
dictions of  the  schools  found  their  unity  in  Buddha's  sub- 
lime idea  of  living  for  the  deliverance  of  mankind. 
The  ardent  saints  fly  like  eagles  through  the  air  to  the'  * 
the  northern  wilds,  to  convert  the  serpents  (na^as)   schools 

through 

of  Kashmir.  Apes  turn  to  men  in  snowy  Thibet ;  their 
beasts  and  evil  spirits  cease  to  cohabit  together,  humanity- 
and  a  race  thus  predestined  to  every  vice  is  transformed 
into  disciples  of  the  "  Four  Verities."  2  By  advice  of  apos- 
tolic men,  a  child  is  exposed  on  the  mountains,  whose  traits 
strangely  mingle  the  best  forms  of  the  inorganic  and  ani- 
mal world  :  seen  in  the  desert  by  hunters,  he  silently  points 
them  to  heaven  ;  taken  to  the  petty  rulers  of  Thibet,  he 
becomes  king,  founds  civil  order,  and  redeems  the  world 
from  falsehood  and  crime  ;  and  "  the  divine  precepts  of 
Buddha  rise  like  the  sun  over  the  mountain  snows."  3  A 
Bodhisattva  descends  to  hell,  and  delivers  every  form  of 
being  through  six  realms  of  creatures  ;  out  of  his  very  tears 
of  pity  bringing  Buddhas  to  birth.4  Doctrines,  disciplines, 
dress,  and  manners  were  adapted  to  new  countries,  with  a 
degree  of  interest  in  social  conditions  which  showed  that 
the  eyes  of  the  Buddhist  missionaries  were  open  to  the 
light  of  this  life.  Why  all  this  stir  about  a  hollow  illusory 
world  ?  In  truth  we  are  forcibly  reminded  in  this  whole 
experience  of  Buddhism  of  the  truth  that  a  secret  and 
inevitable  infusion  of  everlastingness  is  mingled  even  with 

1  See  dates  in  Wurm,  p.  150.  2  See  Bastian,  Peking,  pp.  256-641. 

3  Story  of  Buddha^ri;  see  Schlagintweit's  translation  of  the  Chronicles  of  Kings  of 'Thi- 
bet (Abhandl.  K.  Bay.  Ak.  X.  831). 

4  Bastian  (p.  262)  has  this  legend  of  Chutuktu-Nidubar. 


782  BELIEFS. 

that  impermanence  in  human  life,  which  belongs  to  its 
passions  and  its  possessions.  'Tis  this  that  invincibly  at- 
tracts the  ascetic  to  the  very  objects  whose  transiency  he 
would  fain  utterly  renounce. 

III.   THE  MAHAYANA  SCHOOL. 

In  the  evolution  of  Buddhism  the  "  Four  Verities  "  are 
The  succeeded  by  the  "  Twelve  Nidanas,"  and  these  by 
ofDthetr'ne  the  "Doctrine  of  the  Void."  The  Mahayana  centres 
void."  in  demonstrating  that  conceivable  forms  and  dis- 
tinctions are  but  names  ;  that  existence  and  non-existence 
are  the  same  ;  that  every  thing  is,  and  is  not  ;  and  again 
neither  is  nor  is  not,  because  the  very  idea  of  it  is  an  illu- 
sion. Such  the  "  Doctrine  of  the  Void."  1  Yet  never  was 
Buddhist  intellect  so  productive  and  earnest  as  while  busied 
with  this  object  ;  and  the  passion  lasted  for  a  thousand 
years  !  What  does  it  mean  ? 

It  was  no  isolated  freak  of  reaction  that  produced  this 
its  logical  ardent  search  for  the  emptiness  of  life.  It  was  a 
develop-  natural  outgrowth  from  primitive  Buddhism,  and 

ment  from 

Buddhist     flowed  from  its  protest  against  the  sorrowful  flux 


pi-maples.  o£  fln^e  things  and  the  "sin"  of  being  immersed 
in  them.  It  was  the  logical  sequel  of  that  vast  renuncia- 
tion. What  we  make  it  our  morality  and  religion  to 
surrender,  must  appear  empty  and  unreal.  The  finite 
world,  renounced,  becomes  "  the  Void."  "  The  principle 
of  suffering,  itself,"  says  the  Mahayana,  "  is  the  vanity  of 
things."  ~ 

Repulsion  from  the  impermanent,  we  must  remember,  is 

itsaffirma-  impulse  towards  the  permanent.      The  transience 

of  every  conceivable  object  is  perpetual  suggestion 

1  See  Wassil.,  pp.  122,  133  ;  Mahaparinirvana  Sutra,  Beal,  p.  178;  Prajnd.  Ptvramit& 
(Ibid.,  283);  Wassil.,  p.  147.  2  Wassil.,  p.  181. 


THE    MAHAYANA.  783 

of  endurance  as  lying  outside  it,  in  the  not  conceivable, 
the  not  expressible  in  terms  of  distinction  or  of  compo- 
sition. Things  are  void  in  view  of  a  fulness  :  they  appear 
false  and  vain  through  the  intuition  of  truth  and  use. 
"  Nirvana  is  a  void  ;  but  it  destroys  deception,  and  frees 
from  evil."  1 

But  does  not  this  refuge  from  the  void  in  the  inconceiv- 
able, of  which  nothing  can  be  asserted,  merely  substitute  a 
second  void  for  the  first  ?  By  no  means,  I  reply.  By  his 
very  pursuit  of  it,  man  pronounces  it  real.  It  is  living,  be- 
cause it  is  his  life.  And  as  the  world  he  has  pronounced 
void  inevitably  constitutes  the  matter  of  his  own  existence, 
it  is  this  very  "  void  "  which  that  reality  in  fact  enters  and 
fills.  So  that  every  faculty  in  proportion  to  its  earnest- 
ness in  renouncing  the  finite  becomes  a  new  finite  force 
in  the  service  of  the  abstract  ideal.  Hence,  as  I  conceive, 
the  marvellous  contradiction  which  the  later  Buddhist 
schools  exhibit. 

They  are  actually  more  positive  in  affirming  the  infinite 
and  eternal,  than  negative  in  rejecting  the  finite  Astothe 
and  transient.     So  true  is  this,  that  as  compared  infinite  and 
with   primitive   Buddhism   the  Mahayana  is    com- 
monly regarded  as  softening  the  old  negations,  both  in  its 
idea  of  Nirvana  and   of   permanent  being.     It  is   certain 
that  the  Sutras  of  the  later  schools  seem  to  revel  in  a 
world  of  presumed  reality  infinitely  more  vast  and  plastic 
than  the  undeveloped  senses  which  they  reject. 

Thus  the  Mahaparinirvana,2  which  elaborately  traces  the 
all-destroying  powers  of  age  and  death  through  every 
sphere  of  gods  and  men,  showing  that  even  to  be  born  a 
God  is  not  desirable,  as  bringing  these  with  it;  excepts 
the  highest  heavens  and  the  saint  fixed  in  Mahayana  prin- 
ciples, from  their  sway.  It  describes  Nirvana  as  non- 

1  Thibetan  Catechism  ;   Schott's  Budd.  in  Hoch-Asien. 
1  Beal's  Catena^  pp.  160-188. 


784  BELIEFS. 

existence,  only  in  the  sense  in  which  "  a  thing  is  free  from 
that  which  is  opposed  to  itself ;  "  an  admirable  definition 
of  perfect  wisdom  and  happiness.  It  labors  through  many 
books  to  prove  this  a  real  state,  "  consisting  in  personality, 
permanence,  purity,  and  joy." 

As  knowledge  resides  not  in  the  individual  subject  or 
object,  but  "  in  the  transient  union  of  these  elements  in 
harmonious  relation,"  so  what  we  call  /  results  from  a 
similar  incidental  and  transient  combination  of  elements, 
and  is  therefore  "  but  a  name."  "  Yet  the  true  self  remains 
after  all  this  knowledge  of  the  composite  is  destroyed  ;  and 
that  is  personal,  permanent,  joyful,  and  pure."  "  To  escape 
the  skandhas  is  its  permanence." 

"  When  Buddha  is  wholly  freed  from  the  subjects  of  im- 
permanence  composing  the  body,  his  body  itself  is  perma- 
nent, and  therefore  boundless."  "All  outward  appearances 
gone,  there  is  left  the  one  true  principle  of  life."  Although 
absorbing  Buddha  in  essential  being,  the  Mahayana  gives 
a  stronger  impression  of  his  personality  than  the  Hina- 
yana  ;  emphasizing  his  virtues,  especially  of  renunciation,  in* 
the  depths  of  his  spiritual  repose.1 

The  Surangama  Sutra  2  opens  with  a  subtle  argument  of 
Spiritual-  Buddha  against  locating  the  mental  essence  in  any 
Surafigtla  sPecial  senses  or  objects.  He  endeavors  "to  excite 
Sutra.  in  his  hearers  the  consciousness  of  that  mind 
which  springs  not  from  any  earthly  source."  "  All  phe- 
nomena are  but  manifestations  of  mind,  which  is  the  sub- 
stance of  the  universe.  This  it  is  that  is  found  able  to  act, 
after  all  sensations  have  disappeared,  as  it  were  upon  the 
mere  shadows  of  things."  "  Whatsoever  is  unfixed  and  un- 
certain is  the  travelling  guest  ;  what  is  fixed  and  certain 
we  call  the  Master  of  the  House.  All  that  is  calm  and 
restful  we  may  liken  to  the  sunbeam  in  space ;  all  that  is 

1  See  Wassil.,  pp.  128-133. 

2  Translated  by  Deal  from  the  Chinese,  Catena,  pp.  284-369. 


THE    MAHAYANA.  785 

unsettled  and  unfixed  is  the  dust  that  flies  in  it."  In  its 
substance  mind  depends  not  on  cause  or  connection  ;  "  is 
neither  self-caused,  nor  the  opposite  ;  it  is  independent  of 
conditions  and  not  phenomenal." 

"  Like  a  lost  child  that  suddenly  meets  its  tender  mother,  the  con- 
gregation hear  the  teacher  unfold  the  difference  between  the  true  and 
false,  the  seen  and  unseen,  the  perishing  and  eternal."  They  "  begin 
to  believe  that  after  all  there  may  be  further  life."  They  "see  their 
bodies  as  grains  of  dust  in  the  void,  or  bubbles  of  the  sea  ;  "  but  "  their 
soul  as  perfect,  free,  and  indestructible  ;  ever  the  same ;  identical 
with  Buddha,"  whose  praises  they  sound  ;  "  longing  for  his  nirvana, 
and  his  illuminating  energy  and  boundless  love,  they  would  pass 
through  the  worlds  and  rescue  the  countless  beings  immersed  in  sin, 
and  in  the  end  with  them  find  rest." 

"  This  original  perfect  Heart,  in  its  very  nature  mysteriously  efful- 
gent, boundless  yet  one,  pervading  greatest  and  leastj  enthroned  in  the 
smallest  particle  of  dust,  yet  turning  the  great  Wheel  of  the  Law 
apart  from  sense,  different  from  all  existing  objects,  is  yet  possessed 
by  all."  i 

In  distinction  are  involved  moral  perversion  and  trans- 
migration. But  perversion  itself  being  illusory,  it  is  vain 
to  ask  its  cause.  Thus  summarily  is  the  question  of  the 
origin  of  evil  answered. 

"  Dismiss  all  idea  of  production  and  destruction,  and  keep  to  the 
permanent  reality  of  being  ;  the  only  reality  is  that  which  the  The  secret 
eye  of  dharma  (religion)  perceives.  Of  the  knowledge  of  of  wisdom, 
remote  causes  or  past  conditions  of  birth  I  never  speak,  lest  I  bring 
illusion.  The  mind  leaves  no  room  for  deception  when  it  does  not 
attempt  to  grasp  its  own  activity.  This  is  the  mysterious  lotus,  the 
magic  samftdhi,  instantly  overleaping  all  error." 

"  Nirvana  is  that  which  admits  of  no  conditions,  such  as  are  attached 
to  limited  existence.     It  is  identical  with  the  nature  of  Bud-    Reality  of 
dha,  without  bound,  place,  or  time."2     "The  wind  dies  out,    Nirvana, 
but  can  you  say  it  no  longer  is,  when  the  passing  stroke  of  a  fan  can 
revive  it  ? " 

1  The  resemblance  of  these  Sutras  to  the  Brahmanical  Upanishads,  with  which  their  origin 
is  associated,  will  strike  the  attentive  reader.     (See  Oriental  Religions  ;  India.) 
*  Beal's  translation,  read  before  Intern.  Congress,  1874. 

SO 


786  BELIEFS. 

In  the  Lankavatara,  Buddha  enumerates  among  the 
many  interpretations  of  Nirvana  that  of  annihilation,  and 
says,  "  They  who  so  regard  Nirvana,  shall  not  attain  it."  : 

The  "  Diamond  Sutra,"  2  which  goes  so  far  as  to  speak 
of  the  words,  "  I  must  deliver  all  these  sentient  beings,"  as 
not  really  spoken  by  Buddha,  because  there  were  really  no 
such  beings  to  deliver,  yet  describes  the  highest  condi- 
tion of  being  as  "  actual,  one,  uniform,  an  enlightened  and 
just  heart,  consisting  solely  in  exclusion  of  individual 
distinctions." 

The  extreme  of  speculative  negation  is  reached  in  the 
The  Para-  Paramita  works,  whose  vast  expansion  is  due  in 
m''ta  large  measure  to  repetition  of  formulas  and  illus- 
and°writ-  trations.  Paramita  means  virtue  and  perfection, 
ings.  The  six  Paramitas,  —  morality,  patience,  application, 
contemplation,  wisdom,  and  charity,  —  insisted  on  as  the 
path  to  perfection  in  this  most  developed  school  of  Budd- 
hism, show  how  persistently  it  recurred  to  its  early  spirit 
of  moral  earnestness  and  self-discipline ;  and  the  Mahayana 
is  specially  marked  by  inculcation  of  pity  and  love  for  all 
mankind.3 

The  Prajna-Paramita,  the  typical  work  of  this  class,4  de- 
ThePraj-  clares  that  nothing  really  exists,  and  we  use  names, 
na-para-  not  for  realities,  but  for  illusions.  But  it  immedi- 
ately defines  this  unreality  as  attaching  only  to  the 
transient  quality  of  things  ;  since  the  heart  of  the  world  is 
paramita  (transcendence),  a  joy  and  fulness  for  which  no 
word  will  serve  but  "  inexpressible  light."  5  The  student 
of  this,  as  well  as  of  other  Mahayana  works,  is  impressed 
by  the  curious  inversions  in  logical  movement  ;  the  contra- 
dictory aspects  under  which  each  object  can  be  presented, 

1  Burnouf,  p.  460.  «  From  the  Paramita  (Beal,  R.  A.  Soc.,  1868). 

8  Wassil.,  pp.  120,  i2i. 

4  Twice  translated  into  Chinese,  —  in  the  fourth  and  seventh  centuries, —  and  there  denned  as 
"  Wisdom  carried  over  or  across,"  i.  e.  to  Nirvana,  or  Absolute  Rest.     It  is  "  eighty  times  the 
size  of  the  New  Testament."     Of  course  such  estimates  can  only  be  approximate. 

5  See  Wassil.,  pp.  145-148. 


THE    MAHAYANA. 

balancing  negations  by  equal  affirmations,  and  thus  giving 
as  it  were  free  play  to  a  sense  of  reality  in  the  endless 
chain  of  metaphysical  construction  and  ideal  belief  ;  to  a 
hope  and  trust  in  the  infinite  that  knows  no  bar,  nor  dearth 
of  resource. 

The  energies  of  practical  science  and  art  alone  can  pre- 
vent the  religious  nature  of  man  from  concentrat-  signifi. 
ing  itself  on  the  infinite  and  absolute  as  the  only  cam*  of 
real,  by  enforcing  justice  to  the  finite  side  of  truth.   taieabso^I 
Such  exclusiveness,  here  as  elsewhere,  is  a  defect,  tion  in  the 

.    .  .  1-1  Infinite. 

not  in  the  spiritual  aspirations,  but  m  the  tempera- 
mental relations  of  a  race  to  the  external  world.  It  reveals 
the  soul  as  possessed  by  the  mystery  of  its  own  being  and 
destiny ;  by  the  perception  of  substance  beyond  words  or 
thoughts  or  things.  Its  secret  as  a -spiritual  satisfaction 
consists  in  its  root  in  a  form  of  experience  which  knows  no 
distinctions  of  special  faiths,  but  penetrates  all  that  ever 
have  been  or  will  be.  The  heart  of  man  here  rests  on  what 
contains  his  powers,  not  on  aught  that  is  contained  by 
them  ;  and  every  effort  to  define  their  heaven  fails  through 
the  very  necessity  they  are  in  to  look  beyond  themselves. 
"  The  law  that  can  be  explained  in  words,"  says  the  Budd- 
hist, "  is  no  law." 

The  later  Mahayana  schools  are  commonly  divided  into 
two  classes,  each  of  which  exhibits  striking  positive 
elements.     The  Madhyamika  is  an  effort  at  recon- 

...  schools. 

ciliation,   avoiding   extremes    in    its   phraseology  ; 
allowing  that  the  world   of  illusion  has  existence,  even  as 
illusory  ;  and  that  the  absolute  world  beyond  forms  TheMad- 
is  non-existent,  but  in  the  phenomenal  sense.1    Nega-  hyamika- 
tion  of  the  extreme  views  of  being  and  non-being  is  thus  in 
the  interest  of  affirmation  on  both  sides  ;  the  combination 
of  these  two,  not  the  exclusive  right  of  either,  being  in  fact 
the  true  expression  of  all  knowledge. 

>  Wassil.,  p.  318. 


;88  BELIEFS. 

The  Yogatcharya  school  is  pure  idealism  ;  differing  from 
The  Yogat-  tne  Paramitas  in  emphasizing  the  reality  of  the 
charva.  absolute  more  fully,  and  asserting  the  existence 
of  the  soul  (alaya)  as  without  beginning,  and  while  under 
illusion  from  time  immemorial,  yet  not  forgetting  to  seek 
its  true  life.1  "  All  things  are  the  product  of  thought. 
Neither  the  atoms  of  matter,  nor  the  consciousness  of 
mind,  can  be  any  thing  else  than  the  echo  of  the  idea,  and 
reflections  of  its  state.  To  men  water  appears  as  water  ; 
to  gods  as  nectar  ;  to  demons  as  blood.  The  representa- 
tion is  according  to  the  desire."  2  The  soul  manifests  itself 
under  changing  forms  ;  but  all  things  are  to  be  seen  in  the 
eternal  and  divine.3 

A  still  later  phase  of  the  same  positive  tendency  is  found 
in  the  Buddhist  schools  of  Nepal,  described  by  Mr. 

The  schools  * 

of  Nepal;    Hodgson  as  divisible  into  four  classes,  —  mystic, 
their  posi-    theism  moral,  and  practical.4     A  careful  study  of 


lve  ams 

and  his  elaborate  account  of  these  schools  enables  us  to 

nds'  discern  that  each  pursues  a  positive  substance,  to 
become  one  with  whose  real  being  is  the  end  of  all  en- 
deavor. These  appear  to  me  to  justify  the  following  dis- 
tinctions :  — 

I.  The  Swabhdvika  delights  in  resting  in  that  which 
Swabha-  we  should  call  the  nature  of  things  ;  that  har- 
mony with  their  own  laws  in  which  their  truth  and 
virtue  consist  ;  that  inner  constitution  which  no  supposed 
personal  nor  final  causes  can  transcend  or  go  behind.  In 
this  sense  the  world  is  self-evolved  ;  its  life-principle  is 
within,  not  without  ;  religion  is  cosmogony,  as  an  unfold- 
ing of  the  infinite  ;  and  the  symbolic  Lotus  is  expanded 
into  the  seed-vessel  of  innumerable  worlds.5 

"  The  sandal  tree  freely  exhales  its  fragrance  on  him  who  tears  its 

1  Wassil.,  pp.  289,  151,  160,  134. 

•  Lanknvatara,  analyzed  by  Wassil.,  pp.  308-310.  3  Ibid.,  p.  134  ;  also  Lassen. 

*  See  Burnouf,  pp.  392-395.  6  See  Catena,  p.  n. 


THE    MAHAYANA.  789 

bark.  Who  is  not  delighted  with  its  perfume  ?  It  is  from  Swabhava 
(Nature).  Who  sharpened  the  thorn  ?  Who  gave  their  forms,  colors, 
habits,  to  the  deer  and  birds  ?  Swabhava.  It  is  not  according  to 
the  will  of  any ;  if  there  be  no  desire  or  intention,  there  can  be  no 
designer  or  intender.  From  Swabhava  all  things  proceeded  ;  by 
Swabhava  all  things  are  preserved  ;  all  their  structure  and  habits, 
and  their  destruction  :  Swabhava  is  the  Supreme."  l 

II.  The  Aiswarika  affirms  a  God,  "infinite  and  eternal, 
sum  of  perfection  ;  one  with  all  things,  though  sep-  Aiswarika 
arate  from  all  ;  the  essence  alike  of  what  is  capable 

of  change,  and  of  what  is  not  (pravritti  and  nivritti).  In 
this  Self-existent  One  the  soul  is  freed.  This  is  the  cause 
of  all  things  ;  Tathagata  (He  who  has  gone  like  others)."2 
This  is  Adibuddha,  "  delighting  in  making  all  blessed." 3 
The  soul,  as  his  effluence,  preserves  its  individuality,  and 
does  not  perish.4 

III.  The  Karmika  rests  on  the  law  of   ethical   cause 
and  effect  as  the  substance  of  human  experience 

and  the  meaning  of  the  nidduas,  whose  illusions 
are  ruled  by  this  universal  law.5 

IV.  The  Ydtnika  is  absorbed  in  conscious  human   Yatnika. 
effort,  and  expects  release  by  means  of  it.6 

These  Nepdlese  schools  are  believed  to  have  received 
their  present  form  at  a  comparatively  late  period  ;  espe- 
cially that  of  the  theists,  whose  Adibuddha,  as  a  form  of 
divinity,  is  referred  by  many  scholars  to  the  tenth  century, 
and  even  to  a  Western  origin.7  But  we  shall  see  that  the- 
ism is  but  the  natural  development  of  Buddhism  itself. 

Hodgson,  extracts  from  Sangita  Books  (R.  A.  S.  II.  29). 
Ibid.  «  Ibid.,  p.  84. 

Hodgson,  Lang,  and  Lit.  and  Rel.  of  Nepal  and  Thibet. 
Hodgson,  Jottrn.  of  R  A.  S.  II.  «  Ibid. 

Burnouf,  Klaproth,  &c.    See  Carre,  II.  pp.  260,  261.   For  these  schools  see  also  Bastian, 
Peking,  p.  618  ;  Wylie  ;  Franck,  Etudes  Orient.^  48. 


790  BELIEFS. 


IV.  MYSTICISM. 

We  have  seen  that  the  effort  to  destroy  all  definite 
The  fourth  forms  of  thought  proved  to  be  cultivation  of  the 
Shim  power  of  intellectual  abstraction.  "The  Void," 
is  recur-  made  an  object  of  desire,  becomes  a  reality  ;  and 
religious  is  identified  with  essence,  with  soul,  with  depth  of 


On  the  one  hand,  religious  sentiment  reasserts  its  power 
in  proportion  as  the  faith  is  diffused  over  the  popula- 
tions to  be  rescued  by  its  humanities.  On  the  other,  con- 
templation pursues  a  state  of  absorption  ;  its  idea  being 
one  that  cannot  be  grasped,  but  only  felt,  and  as  it  were 
partaken  by  spiritual  immersion.  Thus  the  fourth  stage 
of  Buddhist  evolution  is  Mysticism,  and  the  Buddha  is 
God. 

Two  results  follow:  the  object  of  worship  has  become 
Personal  personal  ',  the  method  miraculous  and  thaumatur- 

!rfth!fP  £*c'  ^n  ^e  historv  °f  religions  these  two  elements 
Buddha  are  always  found  to  be  coincident.  With  emphasis 
"elation5"  on  personal  relations  with  Deity  comes  reliance  on 
withmira-  miracle  and  sign,  the  supposed  marks  of  volition. 
connection  Personal  sovereignty  requires  revelation  by  won- 
logicai.  der-working,  either  past  or  present.  A  certain 
impersonality  in  religious  conceptions  seems  necessary  to 
the  scientific  sense  of  invariable  law.  I  do  not  mean  im- 
personality considered  as  intellectual  abstraction,  but  as 
inherent  cosmical  force.  'The  absence  of  the  scientific 
sense,  on  the  other  hand,  leaves  open  door  for  the  ten- 
dency of  man  to  worship  gods  in  his  own  image,  and  to 
rely  on  their  interferences  with  Nature.  Even  the  extreme 
of  contemplation,  in  such  case,  runs  over  into  the  demand 
for  these  specific  objects.  To  empty  the  world  of  all  real- 


BUDDHIST    MYSTICISM. 

ity  by  exclusive  pursuit  of  abstraction  leads  to  the  neces- 
sity of  peopling  these  void  spaces  with  occult  pow- 
ers and  human  gods.     It  is  not   then  by  chance  maturgy 
that  the  highest  forms  of  abstract  philosophy  have  "*«™!b 
apparently  degenerated  into  popular  forms  of  nee-  extreme 
romancy ;    that'  the   thaumaturgist   waits   on    the 


tion  in 


mystic.  The  ecstasy  beyond  all  forms  and  con- 
ceptions  sits  at  the  heart  of  the  world,  and  holds 
all  its  secret  springs  of  power.  Plotinus  is  the  natural 
parent  of  Jamblichus ;  Buddha  and  Lao-tse  are  followed 
by  the  magicians  of  modern  China  and  Thibet.  And 
Christianity  has  been  saved  from  similar  extremes  only  by 
the  faculty  of  Aryan  races  for  scientific  study  and  practical 
uses,  which  has  not  only  worked  itself  free  at  last  from  the 
supernaturalism  of  this  faith,  but  is  questioning  all  but  its 
moral  substance. 

The  consequences  of  extreme  abstraction  are  manifest 
in  the  later  stages  of  Buddhism.  But  they  are  very  far 
from  negations. 

I.  From  the  void  whence  all  definite  conceptions  are 
excluded  religion  evolves  new  imaginary  powers,  Su  ernat 
which,  as  they  proceed  from  no  labor,  obey  no 
limit ;  and  which,  as  the  product  of  his  desire  to 
win  mastery  over  the  conditions  of  the  finite,  rep-  dhi" 
resent  to  man  his  own  achievement  and  the  prize  of  his 
renunciations  and  disciplines.  Hence  magical  and  clair- 
voyant gifts,  overleaping  the  slow  steps  of  these  disci- 
plines ;  the  supernatural  powers  of  the  samddhi,  or 
absorbed  state,  to  control  elements,  to  divine  by  stars 
and  days,  to  cure  disease,  to  make  gold,  and  to  supply  the 
elixir  of  immortality.  Minute  rules  for  attaining  these 
powers  ($iddi)  fill  the  dhyani,  or  upper  heavens  of  contem- 
plation. Things  being  unreal,  names  become  the  currency 
of  piety,  and  inherit  the  mystic  virtues  of  the  void  they  fill. 


792  BELIEFS. 

Hence  mystic  formulas  (dkardni),  to  whose  repetition  all 
Mystic  virtues  and  powers  are  ascribed,  and  especially  to 
powers  of  their  written  forms;  perhaps  in  part  a  tribute  to 

the  "dha-  .•--... 

rani"  (for-  the   wonderful    invention    of    writing,    which     in 


anc^  tne  bordering  lands  seems  to  have  co- 
incided  in  time  with  the  extension  of  Buddhism, 
and  its  appeal  to  the  masses  of  Central  Asia.  These 
Buddhist  formulas  have  been  the  runes  of  Asia.  They 
were  identified  with  the  deities  whose  names  and  signs 
they  recorded.1  The  old  Gathas  came  to  have  miraculous 
powers  analogous  to  those  of  the  Christian  cross.2  A  few 
all-potent  names  and  phrases  expand  the  later  Sutras  to 
portentous  size.  As  the  kneeling  crowds  follow  the  genu- 
flections of  priests  in  Christian  cathedrals,  so  the  revolving 
prayer-chests,  filled  with  written  invocations,  are  watched 
alike  by  the  Buddhist  priest  and  by  the  people  incapable 
of  reading  their  meaning.3  The  old  mystic  figures  indica- 
tive of  countless  powers  are  believed  to  be  inscribed  on  the 
Buddha  himself,  and  sought  for  among  the  children  born 
in  Thibet,  when  a  new  Dalai-Lama  is  to  be  chosen  for  the 
Church.4 

Such  the  logical  circle  to  which  religion  is  held.  For 
Theiogi-  beings  and  things  to  be  pronounced  "mere  names" 
cai  circle  simply  brings  the  startling  necessity  of  believing 
The6  'gl  that  names  are  beings  and  things.  This  is  the  sub- 


stantial  lesson  of  the  Tantra  stage  of  Buddhist 
development.  The  Tantras  are  a  medley  of  Buddhist 
speculations,  gross  superstitions  of  Central  Asia,  and 

1  Wassil.,  p.  141;  Sanangsetzen's  Gesch.  d.  Ost-Mongolen(  Schmidt)  ;  Yule's  Marco  Polo, 
I.  277,  282. 

2  Wassil.,  p.  161. 

3  Bastian,  Peking,  pp.  37,  563. 

4  There  are  reckoned  thirty-two  principal  and  eighty  secondary  signs  or  symbols.     Con- 
spicuous among  the  marks  of  the  Sakravartin  (Master  of  the  Wheel),  are  the  wheel  or  disk, 
the  cross,  the  horse,  the  tree  ;    all  of  them  are  ingeniously  traced  to  earlier  symbols  of  Vishnu, 
as  the  sun,  and  Indra,  the  lightning.     See  Senart,  La  Ligende  du  Buddha  (Paris,  1875). 


BUDDHIST    MYSTICISM.  793 

theurgic  formulas  ;  showing  the  perverted  uses  to  which 
the  later  phases  of  an  organized  religion  will  put  the 
heritage  of  its  Scriptures,  its  history,  and  its  traditions,  — 
yet  not  without  features  of  a  higher  type.1 

II.    But  with  the  miraculous  element  enters  also  the  per- 
sonal.    Buddha  is  no  longer  an  idea,  —  a  spiritual  with  the 
and  moral  force  working  through  example,  mem- 


ory,  and  the  endless  power  of  truth.     He  is  a  per-  the  per- 
sonal  God.      He  is  Adibuddha,  Buddha  of  Budd-  vinityof 
has,2  the  Self-existent  One  of  the  Nepalese  theists.   Buddha- 
To  this  conception  of  Deity  is  transferred  all  the  humanity 
and  pity  of  the  early  faith.     "  Adibuddha  delights  in  mak- 
ing happy  every  sentient  being  ;  he  is  assuager  of  pain  and 
grief."     "  He  is  lord  of  the  ten  heavens,  creator  of  all  the 
Budclhas."     In  all  Buddhist  countries,  he  who  has  passed 
into  Nirvana  still  hears  the  prayers  of  men,  and  strives  to 
save  them  for  his  heaven.     But  more  than  this  :  the  pas- 
sion for  personal  relations  has  multiplied  him  into  millions 
of  Buddhas   through   uncounted   ages   and   worlds.      The 
Bodhisattvas  (essentially  wise)  saints,  who  turn  back  from 
the  threshold  of    Nirvana  to  re-enter  incarnation  for  the 
deliverance  of  mankind,  appear  in  vast  numbers  as  mani- 
festations of  Deity.     Every  Buddha  is  first  a  Bod-  The  Bod. 
hisattva,  waiting  his  time  in  the  dkydni  heavens,  hisattvas. 
like  the   Logos  before  his  incarnation.     When  a  Buddha 
comes   on   earth,   he  has  also   his  form  in  heaven.3     The 
honors  paid   the   Bodhisattvas,  as   emanations  of   Buddha 
for  the   redemption   of   mankind,   have  gone  far  towards 
supplanting   the   claims    of    Sakya-mouni    himself.      The 
Mahayana   is    not   chary   of    the    possibilities    of    human 
nature.     Millions  of  these   Bodhisattvas,  it   says,   listened 
to  his  teaching,  and  wait   to  become  living  Buddhas.4 


1  Burnouf  (pp.  465  et  seq.). 

2  Wassil.,  p.  134,  shows  that  the  Tantras are  made  up  of  fragments  of  all  the  schools. 

3  Koeppen,  II.  27.  *  Ibid.,  18. 


794  BELIEFS. 

Manjuc/i,  Maitreya,  Amitabha,  Avalokitesvara,  and  the 
,   rest,  are  Buddhist  Christs ;  ideals,  constructed  to 

The  Budd- 
hist Mes-    satisfy  the  demand  for  personal  and  human  saviours. 

Their  names  and  qualities  are  such  as  every  great 
religion  has  ascribed  to  its  earthly  substitutes  for  omnipo- 
tence ;  such  as  compassion,  mercy,  everlasting  care  for  all 
mankind.1  Statuary  represents  their  universal  powers  by 
multiplying  bodily  members  invested  with  symbolic  figures, 
with  the  wheel,  the  lotus,  the  trisul,  the  gem,  —  and  lends 
their  features  and  attitude  the  mild  serenity  that  befits 
their  enduring  life  of  contemplation  and  love.  The  sense 
of  Buddhahood  freely  reflects  itself  in  colossal  images  of 
Man  reposing  on  the  Throne  of  the  Worlds.  Its  worship 
of  persons  overflows  the  distinction  of  sex.  The  Nepalese 
adore  Adiprajna  as  the  Highest  Wisdom. 

"  Mother  of  Buddha,  and  Universal  Mother,  omniscient,  mani- 
Worshi  fested  in  the  modesty  of  women,  teacher  from  whom  disci- 
of  Mother-  P^es  learn  the  ways  of  action,  that  each  may  follow  the  path 
hood.  Adi-  his  genius  bids."  "  Self-established,  the  sum  of  virtues, 
prajna.  merciful  to  all  thy  worshippers,  all  the  merciful  Buddhas  are 
thy  children  ;  and  in  thy  heart  resides  the  law  of  absolute  truth. 
Thou  earnest  not  from  any  place,  neither  goest  thou  to  any.  Every- 
where present,  the  prosperity  of  the  whole  earth,  the  perfection  of 
powers  (moksha)."2 

Kwan-yin,  the  Chinese  goddess  of  mercy,  destroyer  of 
hell,  redeemer  of  the  sinning  and  suffering  by  her  own 
pain,  will  be  seen  to  be  the  counterpart  of  Adiprajna. 

The  Siamese  believe  in  the  immaculateness  of  the  Vir- 
virginand  gin-Mother  of  Buddha  for  countless  generations.3 
child.  in  their  vision  of  the  conception,  the  holy  child 
enters  as  a  white  elephant  the  womb  of  Maia,  watched 
with  perfect  delicacy  by  the  forty  thousand  angels  of  ten 
thousand  worlds.4  All  the  Bodhisattvas  (burchans)  in  Thi- 

1  See  Oriental  Religions ;  India,  p.  601. 

2  Hodgson,  nt  ante,  p.  311.  ,    3   Wheel  of  the  Law,  p.  95. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  99.     For  the  right  of  woman  to  be  priestess,  or  nun,  see  Der  Weise  und  der 


BUDDHIST    MYSTICISM.  795 

betan  mythology,  except  the  Lama,  are  represented  in 
female  forms.1  "  The  Japanese  Buddhists  embody  protec- 
tive providence  in  thirty  different  forms  of  their  Goddess 
of  Mercy."  2 

To   meet   the   demand  for  concrete  relations  with  the 
superhuman,  this  worship  of  the  human,  with  logi-  Buddhist 
cal  inconsistency,  has  not  only  in  these  later  phases  ^^^ 
provided  liturgies  for  a  faith  to  which,  in  its   earli-  by  the 
est  form,  prayer  seemed  to  be  impossible,3  but  sup- 
plied  a  prodigious  mass  of  miraculous  legend,  of  man. 
ecclesiastical  system,  of   personal  sovereignty  over   men. 
Yet  it  has  known  how  to  inspire  the  whole  with  a  human- 
ity, purity,  and  breadth  of  relation  which  yields  harvests  of 
social  order  and  unity  on  a  scale  equally  impressive.4     To 
its  very  summit  the  hierarchy  is  still  a  tribute  to  human 
nature;  for  it  is  open  to  all  men.     The  Buddhahood  con- 
tinues to  be  human;  its  numerical  exponent  is  so  vast  as 
practically  would  absorb  the  whole  population  of  the  globe 
in  the  same  divine  function.    Buddhism  everywhere  offsets 
its  mythologic  passion  by  a  profound  interest  in  real   Historic 
humanity,  which   makes  it  a  creator  of  historical  mterest- 
studies.     As  in  India  it  has  provided  all  the  landmarks  and 
data  of  chronology,  so  in  Japan  it  has  endeavored  to  bring 
lists  of  historic  rulers  out  of  the  mass  of  mythical  legends 
preserved  from  early  times.5 

On  the  other  hand,  so  simple  and  so  universal  are  the 
experiences   to  which  this  faith   makes  appeal,  so  Universal 
free  of  definite  dogma  and  exclusive  authority  is  its  affinities  of 
argument,  that  its  mild  invitations  attract  all  tribes 
and  surround  all  strifes  and  problems  with  a  larger  sweep 
of  sympathy.     Its  Wheel  (Sakra)  of  the  Law  rolls  like  the 

Thor,  ch.  xxv  (Wollheim,  p.  755).  In  the  Thibetan  temples  five  female  deities  stand  behind 
the  seven  jewels  as  mediators  (Bastian,  p.  570). 

1  Bastian,  p.  586.  2  Pfoundes,  Fuso-Mimi-Bukaro,  p.  no.  3  Catena,  p.  397. 

4  See  Oriental  Religions,  India.  B  Matouanlin,  seeAtsuma  Gusa. 


796  BELIEFS. 

sun,  which  it  symbolized,  through  the  whole  circuit  of  the 
heavens,  to  illumine  all. 

Its  Lamas  praise  the  "  Buddha  of  myriad  names."  Its 
The  soi-  morality  and  psychology  are  the  solvent  of  Asiatic 
vent  of  civilization.  It  assimilates  beliefs,  customs,  and 

Asiatic 

civilization,  traditions,  imparting  to  them  a  meaning  as  well  as 
a  currency  and  harmonious  relation  they  had  not  known. 
It  supplements  defects  ;  it  absorbs  and  utilizes  energies. 
It  is  monastic  and  hierarchical  with  the  listless  rover  of 
the  steppes.  It  is  democratic  and  providential  with  the 
civilized  Chinese,  who  seeks  escape  from  his  bonds  of 
routine  and  his  attachment  to  things  seen  and  under- 
stood. It  is  mortuary  and  miraculous  among  the  supersti- 
tious tribes  of  Cochin-China  and  Siam.  It  has  lifted  into 
the  service  of  its  orderly  disciplines  the  noisy  drum  and 
bells  of  the  northern  Shamans.  It  has  interwoven  with 
its  legend  in  Thibet  the  Persian  dualism  of  creation,  fall, 
and  strife  of  good  and  evil  angels,1  and  the  spiritism  of  the 
ruder  Bhuta-worship  oi  Southern  India.  It  has  appro- 
priated the  sacred  tri-literal  (Atim)  from  Brahmanism,  ex- 
cluding its  pride  of  caste.  It  has  accepted  Shiva  and  Par- 
vati,  fierce  mountain  gods,  among  its  retributory  powers  ; 2 
transforming  the  bloody  sacrifices  of  the  one  into  incense 
and  flowers,  and  the  skull-necklace  of  the  other  into  a 
rosary  for  the  penitent.  It  has  changed  the  symbol  of 
Tartar  sovereignty  into  the  holy  "wheel,"  whose  revolution 
achieves  powers  and  rewards  not  of  this  world.  Its  topes 
are  covered  with  tributes  to  the  primitive  serpent-cultus 
which  it  superseded  ;  and  the  nagas  are  propitiated  into 
civilization- by  legends  ascribing  to  them  the  guardianship 
of  the  highest  speculative  "  wisdom,"  and  the  conversion 
of  Nagarjuna,  its  reputed  founder.3  It  has  accepted  the 

1  Bastian,  pp.  581,  584,  588.  z  Wurm,  p.  196. 

8  Wassil.,  pp.  119,  213.  See  also  Fergusson,  R.  A.  S  ,  1868.  The  nagas  in  the  wonderful 
sculptures  of  Amravati  are  represented  as  of  equal  importance  with  Buddha  himself.  They 
are  the  handsomest  people  on  the  monuments. 


BUDDHIST     MYSTICISM.  797 

deified  men  of  Japanese  worship  as  so  many  incarnations 
of  Buddha  for  human  good,  and  thereby  won  a  foothold 
represented  by  sixty  thousand  temples  and  three  times  that 
number  of  priests.1  Perhaps  it  will  one  day  do  the  same 
easy  hospitalities  to  Mohammed,  or  Moses,  or  Jesus.  We 
have  read  of  but  one  Buddhist  sect -whose  habits  are  ex- 
clusive and  whose  spirit  is  censorious  and  bitter  :  the  Nichi- 
ren  of  Japan.  Even  Buddhism  must  have  its  "  ranters,"  if 
'twere  but  in  reaction  on  Nirvana's  peace.  So  has  it  inter- 
fused itself  with  Confucianism  in  China,  and  with 
Shintoism  injapan,  that  it  is  hardly  separable  from 
them  by  the  eye  of  a  foreigner ;  nor  do  its  disciples  in  fact 
form  a  distinct  body,  the  rites  of  each  of  the  religions  being 
resorted  to  indifferently  by  the  same  persons.2  Buddhist 
emperors  of  the  Han  sacrificed  to  Shang-te  while  carrying 
Buddhist  amulets  under  their  robes  ;  and  Buddhist  symbols 
were  found  in  the  "  Summer  Palace  "  at  Peking  when  the 
English  destroyed  it,  indicating  the  imperial  sympathies.3 
Even  the  Sacred  Edict,  in  its  severest  criticisms  on  the 
"  sect  of  Fo,"  admits  that  they  "  attend  to  the  heart,"  or  did 
so,  until  corrupted  by  legends  of  miracles  for  purposes 
of  gain.4 

The  universal  affinities  of  Buddhism,  aided  by  its  wise 
tolerance  and  its  earnest  search  for  the  hidden 

A  religion 

essence  of  good  under  all  faiths,  have  enabled  it  to  of  brother- 
pass  all  barriers  and  find  the  brother  in  every  com-  h 
munion,  so  far  as  he  acknowledges  morality,  humanity,  and 
spiritual  endeavor  to  be  the  great  ends  of  life.  A  popular 
Chinese  Sutra  opens  with  the  affirmation  that  "  what 
Buddha  taught  is  all  good,  and  differs  from  the  Yu-kiao 
(Confucianism)  only  in  name  ; "  and  then  it  goes  on  to 
designate  this  substantial  moral  identity  in  detail.5 

1  See  Griffis,  The  Mikado' 's  Empire.  2  See  Wurm,  p.  I5o. 

3  St.  Denys,  Poesies  des  Thang,  p.  19.  *  Maxim  vii. 

S  Tiing-tti-iven.  Extracts  are  given  in  Schott,  Der  Buddhismus  in  Hoch-Asien.  But  it 
claims  that,  while  Confucianism  is  for  this  life  only,  Buddhism  frees  from  transmigration  also. 
For  a  like  spirit,  see  The  Modern  Buddhist  of  Siam. 


798  BELIEFS. 

"  Kwan-shin  (a  Buddhist  saint)  said  :  '  All  virtues  grow  from  pity- 
The  Tsing-  ing  love  of  man.'  Lao-tse  said,  l  Of  the  three  noble  qualities, 
tuwen.  pitying  love  is  the  noblest.'  The  Confucians  say, '  Of  the  five 
main  virtues,  love  of  man  is  the  chief.'  All  have  thus  the  same  mean- 
ing. Not  seeing  this,  people  nourish  wrath  and  revenge."  l 

"  I  have  written  this  book,"  says  the  author  of  the  Tsing- 
tu-wen,  "  to  give  joy  to  all  men7,  to  make  their  hearts  wide, 
and  to  become  a  Buddha-heart."  2 

The  Mongolians  claim,  in  proof  of  the  unifying  breadth  of 
Mongolian  their  faith,  that  "there  is  not  an  unbeliever  in  the 
Buddhism.  ianc}."  s  Tne  same  authority  says  of  them,  that 
"  immortality  is  firmly  believed  by  the  whole  population." 
"  They  scorn  the  idea  that  the  soul  began  its  life  with  the 
body,  or  will  perish  with  the  body.  Every  Mongolian  be- 
lieves that  its  condition  in  the  future  life  depends  on  the 
use  it  has  made  of  the  present.  Nowhere  is  there  less 
cruelty  than  in  Mongolia ;  even  the  meanest  creature  is 
treated  with  consideration,  as  well  as  the  cattle  and  flocks. 
The  very  birds  are  tame,  and  there  is  pity  for  the  mos- 
quito "  !  Ampere  contrasts  the  tenderness  of  Buddhists 
towards  animals,  in  putting  up  hospitals  for  them  while 
men  are  covered  with  vermin,  with  the  Christian  Male- 
branche  crushing  his  little  dog  with  his  foot,  convinced 
that  animals  are  machines. 

For  the  humane  and  noble  things  in  the  Christian  Bible 
and  elsewhere  Buddhists  have  much  respect.  Powers  are 
ascribed  to  prayer  and  to  pious  labors  for  the  public  good, 
such  as  making  roads  and  clearing  lands.  "  The  attitude 
of  mind  is  what  determines  the  moral  quality  of  an  action." 
That  this  religion  "  hinders  the  material  prosperity  of  Mon- 
golia," with  sixty  per  cent  of  the  population  in  monasteries, 
and  "  though  supporting  themselves  to  a  great  degree  by 
labor,  yet  celibate  and  without  enterprise,"  we  may  not  be 

1  Schott,  Tsing-tu-^ven,  p.  117.  z  Ibid.,  p.  95. 

3  Chin.  Recorder,  January  and  February,  1874. 


BUDDHIST    MYSTICISM.  799 

inclined  to  dispute.  That  "  while  three-quarters  of  the 
children  go  to  school,  it  is  mainly  to  learn  pronouncing  ; " 
that  "  only  fourteen  per  cent  of  the  Lamas  can  read,"  and 
that  "  the  people  pay  heavily  for  their  prayers  and  miracles," 
—  are  statements  that  do  not  surprise  us  when  reported  of 
a  faith  which  teaches  the  emptiness  of  the  world.  That  the 
humanities  are  cherished,  that  "  the  Mongolian  feeds  the 
hungry,  clothes  the  naked,  gives  tea  to  the  thirsty  and 
relieves  the  oppressed,"  *'  only  because  these  things  have 
their  reward  in  making  merit;"  and  that  the  people  are 
"  very  wicked,"  especially  in  the  temples,  —  are,  on  the 
other  hand,  inferences  not  to  be  accepted  lightly,  nor  with- 
out more  proof  than  we  possess;  especially  as  they  are  in 
opposition  to  the  whole  history  of  Buddhism,  and  to  facts 
admitted  by  the  writer  from  whom  we  take  them.  The 
trickeries  he  mentions  are  of  small  account  beside  those  of 
more  civilized  nations.  That  so  few  can  read  is  consistent 
enough  with  a  religion  whicn*  has  passed  into  the  ritualistic 
stage.  Yet  in  Nepal,  according  to  the  best  authority,  "  the 
main  body  of  the  literature  consists  of  popular  tracts 
suited  to  the  wants  of  the  lowest  classes,"  even  those  that 
are  destitute  of  every  luxury  that  in  our  ideas  precedes  the 
luxury  of  books.1  And  in  China,  the  mass  of  popular  liter- 
ature is  of  Buddhist  origin.  Even  St.  Hilaire  says  it  is 
rare  to  find  persons  in  Buddhist  countries  who  cannot  read, 
and  that  most  monasteries  have  schools  for  the  poor.2 

Reading  is  the  special  joy  of  the  Buddhist  nomad  in  his 
tent,  of  the  Lama  in  his  cell.  We  of  the  West  may  here 
see  a  whole  race  of  men  who  can  read  and  meditate,  and 
who  yet  ignore  our  practical  sciences,  finding  contempla- 
tion, not  brutal  and  sensual  pleasures,  all  sufficient  ;  claim- 
ing that  its  service  of  love  and  pity,  and  its  promise  of 
mastery  over  the  sorrows  of  life  and  death,  are  a  religion 

1  Hodgson,  Lang,  and  Lit.  &c.,  pp.  9,  to.  2  Le  Bouddha,  p.  400. 


8OO  BELIEFS. 

more  universal  than  those  triumphs  of  sectarian  faith  and 
material  civilization  which  so  absorb  the  virtue  of  the 
Christian  world. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM. 

THE  relation  of  the  Chinese  to  Buddhism  is  external 
Chinese  anc^  derivative.  The  creative  stages  of  this  re- 
Buddhism  Hgion  had  already  passed,  and  it  had  reached  its 
ecclesiastical  and  personal  stage,  when  it  began  to 
get  foothold  in  the  empire  in  the  centuries  which  followed 
the  reconciliation  of  its  schools  at  the  council  of  Kanishka. 
There  was  little  that  Chinese  thought  could  add  to  its  in- 
tellectual development  ;  nothing  that  Chinese  habits  could 
supply  for  deepening  that  earnest  renunciation  of  the  finite 
and  sensuous  on  which  it  was"  based.  We  do  not  wonder 
that  the  early  and  principal  books  of  the  faith  were  trans- 
lated from  Sanscrit  by  Hindu,  not  by  Chinese,  hands  ;  nor 
yet  that  centuries  afterwards,  when  the  "  Chinese  Pilgrim  " 
traversed  India,  representing  a  great  religious  demand  in 
his  own  country, l  it  was  in  order  to  obtain  from  the  orig- 
inal seats  of  the  faith  a  light  upon  its  meaning  which  he 
could  not  find  at  home.2  And  this,  although  he  was  him- 
self so  devoted  an  adherent  of  the  highest  speculative 
school  at  which  it  ever  arrived,  that  the  words  of  the 
Prajna  Paramita  were  his  constant  refuge  and  protection 
from  all  evil,3  and  although  he  was  afterwards,  in  his  zeal, 
to  wear  out  his  toilsome  life  in  making  a  new  translation 
of  that  immense  work. 

With  all  the  defect  of  original  force  in  Chinese  Budd- 

1  China  contained  in  Hiouen  Thsang's  day  thirteen  thousand  temples  (?).      Deal's  Introd., 
P-  29.  2  Julien's  Vie  de  Hiouen  Tksang,  1853,  p.  12. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  28.     On  the  character  of  Hiouen  Thsang,  see  Oriental  Religions,  Vol.  I.  p.  676. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  8OI 

hism,  the  whole  literature  of  this  earnest  faith  has  Yet  the 
for  two  thousand  years  made  the  empire  its  home.  ^ 
It  has  gravitated  thither  from  what  was  apparently 

J     of  this  re- 

the  most  congenial  clime,  to  one  where  it  might  seem  ligion. 
that  men  were  desirous  of  receiving  it  in  proportion  as 
they  were  unfitted  to  comprehend  or  to  unfold  it.  By 
far  the  fullest  fund  of  Buddhist  Scriptures,  —  at  least  two 
thousand  volumes,1  —  throwing  great  light  on  all  other  texts, 
and  even  on  the  monumental  records  of  the  faith  in  India,'2 
is  found  in  a  language  utterly  unsuited  to  render  the  sounds 
of  the  proper  names  with  which  it  is  crowded,  and  to  which 
great  importance  is  attached.  The  confinement  of  Difficulties 
Chinese  characters  to  the  representation  of  certain  of 
syllabic  sounds,  and  the  imperfect  vocalization  of 
the  race,  made  it  unavoidable  that  Sanscrit  names  into  chi- 
should  be  written  in  false  phonetics,  and  that  phil- 
osophical and  religious  terms  should  be  rendered  by  ideo- 
graphs which  expresssed  their  abstract  meaning  in  a  figu- 
rative or  concrete  way.  For  these,  and  other  reasons,  the 
translating  of  this  enormous  body  of  writings  from  Sans- 
crit into  Chinese  is  one  of  the  most  astonishing  monuments 
of  religious  industry  in  the  history  of  mankind.  Although 
it  was  mainly  the  work  of  Hindu  monks,  the  Chinese  were 
quite  as  active  in  obtaining  and  circulating  the  originals, 
and  in  giving  literary  form  and  expansion  to  a  faith  which 
had  been  preserved  for  many  centuries  after  Buddha  without 
recourse  to  written  words.3  The  translations  of  Mr.  Beal 
alone  are  sufficient  to  show  that  these  Chinese  col-  Extent  of 
lections  cover  all  the  schools  and  forms  of  Budd-  JJ^0^ 
hism.  Scarcely  a  Sutra  is  known  which  is  not  lections. 

1  Wylie,  p.  164;    also  Edkins's  list,  Journ.  R.  A.  S-  xvi.  ;  and  Pref.  to  Seal's  Catena, 

2  See  Seal's  paper,  read  before  Oriental  Congress  of  1874  (Tritbner's  Record). 

8  Fifty-five  Chinese  monks  visited  India  before  730  A.  D.,  and  wrote  journals  of  their 
travels.  Matouanlin  speaks  of  the  lively  intercourse  between  the  countries  kept  up  by  the 
interests  of  Buddhism.  One  hundred  and  fifty-seven  monks  brought  writings  to  the  court  from 
India  in  the  tenth  century  (see  Lassen,  IV.  743,  744). 


802  BELIEFS. 

preserved  in  this  language.  It  seems  the  function  of  this 
people  to  gather,  register,  and  tabulate  the  thought  of  the 
Eastern  hemisphere.1  They  have  analyzed  in  the  minutest 
manner  stages  of  religious  contemplation,  forms  of  moral- 
ity, rules  of  self-discipline  and  conventual  life. 

It  could  not  have  been,  however,  a  merely  literary  pas- 
signs  of     si°n  tnat  ted  to  the  formation  of  a  vast   number 


of  sects,  sent  large  bodies  of  monks  back  and 
earnest-  forth  between  India  and  China  for  a  thousand 
ness.  years,  and  stimulated  a  courage  in  overcoming  the 
dangers  of  mountain  and  desert  travelling,  which  rivals  the 
highest  achievements  of  modern  exploration.  Nor  could 
it  have  been  for  merely  bibliographical  purposes,  —  the  col- 
lection of  books  in  libraries,  —  that  the  subtle  metaphysics  of 
the  Surangama  Sutra,  and  the  minute  practical  regulations 
of  the  Pratimokshas,  were  both  laboriously  rendered  into 
the  current  speech  of  a  great  people.  The  facts  indicate 
that  Buddhism,  as  a  substantial  faith,  had  struck  root  in  the 
permanent  qualities  of  the  nation.  And  we  can  appreciate 
the  zeal  of  Hiouen  Thsang  in  defending  his  people  against 
the  contempt  of  the  Hindu  sages,  when  he  described  China 
as  famous  for  its  just  laws,  and  reverence  for  the  aged  and 
the  wise  ;  for  its  science  penetrating  all  mysteries,  its  ad- 
miration for  the  "  Great  Vehicle,"  its  power  of  contempla- 
tion, and  its  devotion  to  peace  and  good  will.2 

This  national  interest  in  Buddhist  thought  reaches  to 
Even  in  *ke  mgnest  forms  of  the  Mahayana.  Such  Sutras 
meta-  as  have  been  already  quoted  as  exhausting  meta- 
physical acuteness,  in  order  to  exclude  every  thing 
but  the  universal  element  in  mind  from  the  categories  of 
permanence  and  bliss,  are  in  fact  among  the  most  popular 
Buddhist  writings  in  China.  The  most  conspicuous  native 
school,  that  of  Chi-kai,  called  the  Tien-tai,  seeks  to  em- 

1  See  Wylie's  immense  list. 

*  Vie  de  Hiouen  Tksang,  p.  231. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  803 

brace  the  whole  range  of  Buddhist  metaphysics,  morals,  and 
discipline ;  beginning  with  thorough  external  nega-   Ch;ka. 
tion,   yet  proceeding  to  a  full    demonstration    of 
spiritual   permanence   based    on    pure   morals   and   broad 
humanity,    and    ending  with    the   path    of   absorption   by 
which    the   mystic    powers   of    the    saint   are   at-  The 
tained    (samdd/ii).      The    Chong-lun,    ascribed    to  chong- 
Nagarjuna,   founder   of    the    Mahayana,   is  a  still 
subtler  process  of  contradictory  syllogisms  ;  showing  the 
impossibility  of   affirming  either   being   or   non-being,   to 
the  end  of  proving  the  transcendence  of  Nirvana  to   all 
forms  of  cognition.1 

But  the  great  popularity  of  such  speculations  does  not 
necessarily  imply  a  corresponding  strength  of  points  of 
metaphysical  conception.  "  The  Chinese  appre-  f"g^° 
ciate  these  subtleties,"  says  Beal,  "  without  enlarg-  hist  meta- 
ing  upon  them.  Their  commentators  confine  them-  fheys^Ch;.°r 
selves  to  bare  explanation  of  terms,  and  indulge  in  nese. 
no  original  speculations."  There  was  no  passionate  dis- 
putation as  in  India.  The  Confucians  and  the  bonzes  do 
not  discuss  logic  so  much  as  positive  facts  and  moral 
effects.  In  short,  this  literature  seems  rather  to  meet  a 
demand  than  to  quicken  a  natural  force.  The  attractive- 
ness of  the  "  Expanded  Sutras"  probably  consisted  mainly 
in  their  impartiality  in  the  treatment  of  all  forms  of 
thought,  —  a  gratification  to  the  national  habit  of  balanc- 
ing and  mutually  neutralizing  things ;  this,  too,  in  the 
interest,  not  only  of  harmony,  but  of  a  permanent  "un- 
knowable "  reality  beyond  the  constant  flux  of  minute 
detail,  the  endless  dust-whirl  of  -an  intensely  social  life. 
The  vague  longing  to  escape  these  vanities,  which  so 
strongly  marks  the  poetry  of  the  later  T'ang,  is  thoroughly 
Buddhistic.  The  theory  of  St.  Denys,  however,  that  this 
quality  is  owing  to  the  enormous  void  left  by  the  absence 

1  See  Beal's  Paper,  &•<:.,  itt  supra  ;  also  Buddh.  Pilgrims,  pp.  142,  143. 


804  BELIEFS. 

of  definite  religious  beliefs,  and  that  the  plaintive  self- 
abandonment  and  ennui  of  such  men  as  Li-thai-pe  and 
Thou-fou  is  but  the  poetic  reaction  from  indifference  and 
Relations  scepticism  in  doctrine,  is  disproved  by  the  fact  that 
to  Chinese  the  equal  scepticism  of  Confucianism  in  general 
produces  very  different  effects  ;  while  Buddhism, 
on  the  other  hand,  has  in  fact  a  very  strong  element  of 
religious  earnestness.  I  prefer  to  explain  the  poetic  Budd- 
hism of  the  T'ang  by  impartiality  rather  than  indifference 
in  the  Chinese  mind  ;  by  its  natural  thirst  for  some  spirit- 
ual solvent  of  these  infinitesimal  details,  coming  and  going 
as  if  to  mock  the  sense  of  immortality  everywhere  ;  and  by 
the  growing  complexity  of  a  civilization  which  will  be  found 
to  have  shown  in  its  simpler  stages  no  such  tendency  to 
the  abstractions  of  metaphysical  negation. 

The  taste  for  speculative  Buddhism  appears  to  me  a  sign 
of  the  breadth  of  the  national  mind,  as  denoting  a 

Metaphys- 

ical affini-  capacity  for  the  purely  ideal,  which  could  hardly  be 

ideaUs*  exPected  from  its  concrete  habits.     But  we  can  go 

the  truly  further,  and  detect  the   connecting  link   between 

concrete.  these  habits  and  the  higher  philosophy  of   Budd- 

hism  in  the  purpose  of  the  latter  to  prove  mind  and  mat- 
ter to  be  one,  as  substance  and  manifestation  ;  and  also  to 
dissolve  all  positive  phenomena  into  the  ideal  as  the  only 
real  concrete  :  so  that  the  national  habit  of  dealing  with 
these  phenomena  itself  receives  a  kind  of  metaphysical 
endorsement  and  spiritual  interpretation. 

We  must  observe  also  the  many  signs  that  even  the 
Practical  highest  flights  of  Mahayana  logic  do  not  ignore 
aiisticaf-  *ne  early  claims  of  Buddhism  to  stand  by  common 


sense,  and  to  be  a  religion  of  reason  as  well  as  faith. 
It  was  natural  that  the  Chinese  should  be  attracted  by  this 
quality  in  Sutras  which  demonstrate  the  self-existence  of 
mind,  and  the  perpetual  inherence  of  the  soul  therein  ;  1  the 

1  Surangama. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  805 

real  attainment  of  "  transcendental  (other-shore)  wisdom  ; "  1 
the  permanence,  personality,  and  bliss  of  Nirvana  ; 2  the 
escape  from  ignorance  and  transience,  to  rest  in  what  is 
eternally  true  and  stable;3  and  the  endeavor  to  combine 
pure  knowledge  and  action  with  the  meditative  rest 
which  knows  no  sorrow  and  fears  no  loss.4  Still  more 
satisfactory  to  the  positivist  habit  of  mind  was  the  direct 
dealing  of  Buddhist  speculation  with  the  facts  of  experience 
as  expressions  of  unchanging  laws,  without  beginning  or 
end  ;  instead  of  attempting  to  stop  at  some  "  First  Cause," 
or  to  solve  all  things  by  the  idea  of  an  eternal  will.  Of  the 
Thibetan  schools  mentioned  in  a  previous  chapter,  the  most 
popular  in  China  is  said  to  be  the  Swdbhavika,  which 
refers  all  things  to  their  "  nature"  as  the  ultimate  solution, 
under  whose  larger  law  must  fall  all  individual  wills  whether 
providential  or  creative. 

But  the  metaphysical  element  in  Chinese  Buddhism  is 
not  so  characteristic  as  its  moral  qualities,  its  purity, 
humanity,  and  earnest  self-discipline ;  and  these  are  in 
full  accord  with  the  genius  and  tradition  of  the  people. 
They  belong  alike  to  the  oldest  precepts  and  the  latest 
speculations.  Through  all  abstraction  and  world-rejection, 
the  aim  to  rescue  a  human  race  immersed  in  evil,  moral 
and  physical,  and  to  find  rest  as  a  blessing  for  all  to  share,5 
is  kept  steadily  in  view.  The  worth  of  that  essence  is 
urged,  from  which,  "  though  wandering  from  birth  to  birth 
in  delusion  and  sin,  the  divine  can  yet  bring  forth  its  native 
rays  of  bright  reflection  from  the  eternal  deep  (brightness 
of  the  ocean  shadows)  by  virtue  of  right  handling."  6  The 
purpose  of  all  teaching  is  "  through  what  is  <good  for  our- 
selves to  do  good  to  others;"7  "to  bring  heavenly  medicine 
to  the  world."  8  The  Shaman's  daily  prayer  is  that  "every 

1  Prajna  Paramita.  *  Mahapari-nirvana. 

8   The  whole  Mahayana.  *   Tien-tat  School. 

6  Surafigama,  in  Catena,  p.  343  ;  Cki-kai,  Ibid.,  p.  267. 

6  Suraiigama,  Ibid.,  pp.  353,  354.  »  Sutra  of  Dying  Instruction.  •  Ibid. 


806  BELIEFS. 

breathing  thing  may  wake  to  saving  wisdom."  We  have 
already  seen  that  the  Chinese  Nirvana  is  "  perfection  of 
purity  and  permanence."  1 

The  method  is  unvarying.  In  every  Buddhist  Scripture 
Ethical  duty  comes  first, — purification  from  inward  taint 
andpracti-  an(j  Qv[\  wish  \  cleansing  of  the  spirit,  not  of  the 
of  the  form.  The  old  Gatha  runs  through  the  whole. 

Buddhist 

Scriptures.          "He  who  guards  his  mouth  with  virtuous  motive, 
And  cleanses  both  mind  and  will, 
And  suffers  his  body  to  do  no  evil  thing,  — 
His  is  the  three-fold  purification, 
The  full  doctrine  of  all  the  Buddhas."  2 

"  The  three  moral  diseases  are  covetousness,  hate,  delusion ;  for 
which  there  are  three  medicines  :  (i)  the  sense  of  impurity  ;  (2)  a 
heart  full  of  love  :  (3)  knowledge  of  the  moral  law  (karma)."3 

"  The  substance  of  a  Bodhisattva's  character  is  perfect  patience, 
which  is  of  four  kinds  :  (i)  when  reviled,  he  reviles  not  again  ;  (2) 
smitten,  he  is  not  angry  ;  (3)  treated  violently,  he  returns  love  and 
good  will ;  (4)  threatened  with  death,  he  bears  no  malice."  4 
I  u  Keep  the  body  temperate  ;  restrain  the  senses;  forget  not  self- 
examination.  Put  away  every  sin.  Hold  fast  patience.  If  one, 
because  he  does  not  enjoy  as  he  wishes,  loses  patience,  he  is  one  who 
will  not  enter  on  the  path,  because  he  cannot  at  once  quaff  the  dew  of 
immortality."5 

"  Buddha  said :  There  is  no  profit  in  seeking  to  know  one's  previ- 
ous lives.  To  acquire  knowledge,  guard  the  will  and  the  conduct. 
You  rub  a  mirror  to  remove  the  dust,  that  its  natural  lustre  be  saved 
and  seen.  So  keep  pure  from  sin,  and  you  shall  know  your  past  and 
future."  6 

Chi-kai  minutely  analyzes  the  moral  hindrances  to  pro- 
gress ;  discourses  earnestly  on  the  sense  of  wrong-doing ; 
treats  the  love  of  pleasure  in  the  style  of  a  Puritan,  and  in- 
sists on  cutting  off  the  secret  springs  of  evil  in  the  heart.7 

1  Matouanlin  says  the  Buddhists  and  the  Tao-sse  agree  in  "  explaining"  nihility  by  quiet 
or  stillness. 

1  Catena,  p.  159.  3  Mdhapar.  Sutra. 

«  Pu-sa-sing-ta-king  (Beal's  Paper  before  Or.  Congr.,  1874). 

6  Sutra  of  Dying  Instruction.  6  Forty-two  Sessions  Sutra,  p.  12.  7  Catena. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  807 

% 

As  the  special  grace  of  the  Mahayana,  he  opens  the  door 
of  repentance  to  all ;  the  conditions  being  renewal  of  faith 
in  retribution ;  shame,  reverence,  fear ;  devout  conduct, 
confession,  cleansing  the  heart,  and  desire  for  the  good  of 
all  men. 

Even  the  trivial  rules  for  monastic  discipline,1  which  treat 
the  disciple  as  a  machine,  retain  a  singular  refine-  HOW  they 
ment  of  precept,  teaching  decency  and  mutual  re-  |^st 
spect,   and  watchfulness  over   the   behavior:    and  selfish 
this  is  true  of  all  the  Pratimokshas  and  catechisms  o^mon^! 
of  the  empire.     A  body  of  monks,  whose  medita-  ticism- 
tions  and  penances  for  the  general  good  were  to  be  sup- 
ported by  the  contributions  of  the  masses,  must  make  alms- 
giving demoralizing  to  the  sentiments  and  the  sympathies. 
But  Buddhism  provided  against  this  danger  by  everywhere 
urging  a  spirit  of  helpfulness  suggestive  of  civilizing  work. 
The  great  motive  of  world-renunciation,  which  seems  to 
have  been  a  leading  power  in  the  formation  of  all  positive 
religions,  was  thus  somewhat  controlled  ;  nor  was  the  Chi- 
nese temperament  wanting  in  those  qualities  which  hold 
religion  to  practical  materials  and  uses. 

"  The  Chinese  have  given  practical  application  and  de- 
velopment to  the  Sutras  received  from  abroad."2  TheCM- 
In  India,  caste   and  a  hostile   faith   opposed    the  nese  . 

second 

popular  liberties  sought  by  Buddhism,  and  finally  theprac- 
expelled  it.  In  Thibet  and  Mongolia  it  had  to  f^sli 
contend  with  savage  rites  and  superstitions.  But  Buddhism. 
in  China  it  found  a  civilized  people  ready  to  discuss  its 
problems,  and  to  second  its  humanity.  They  have  im- 
parted their  own  elasticity  to  this  religion  of  other-world- 
liness  and  pain.  The  Feast  of  Lanterns,  the  Chinese 
Saturnalia,  when  all  people  have  freedom  and  equality,  is 


1  Neumann's  Catech.  of  Shamans  ;  where  the  scope  of  rules  goes  to  the  maintenance  of 
moral  precautions  and  restraints  very  needful  in  Oriental  life. 

2  Schott,  Der  Buddh.  in  Hoch-Asien. 


80S  BELIEFS. 

Buddhist  in  application,  if  not  in  origin.1  The  monasteries 
in  China  are  bright  with  gardens,  and  planted  in  the  best 
scenery  of  the  country.  Rites  are  kept  with  little  strict- 
ness ;  creeds  and  traditions  melt  together  ;  and  the  bon- 
zes, however  low  their  grade  of  culture  and  social  repute, 
yet  belong  to  the  people,  and  meet  the  wants  of  those  clas- 
ses which  Confucian  rationalism  does  not  reach.  Though 
the  Chinese  have  not  added  to  the  canonical  scriptures  of 
Buddhism,  they  have  greatly  multiplied  its  stores  of  precept 
and  legend,  of  popular  fictions,  and  ethical  and  religious 
sentences  inscribed  on  temples  and  shrines  ;  pedagogic 
enough,  yet  always  pure,  and  commonly  in  a  vein  of  prac- 
tical sense  or  homely  humor. 

Williams  says  of  the  priests  that  "  their  moral  character, 
Pri  sts  and  as  a  c^ass»  *s  on  a  Par  with  their  countrymen  ;  and 
religious  many  of  them  are  respectable,  intelligent,  and  so- 
ber-minded persons,  who  seem  desirous  of  making 
themselves  better  by  their  religious  observances."  2  In  re- 
ply to  GutzlafFs  account  of  the  indifference  and  levity  of 
services  at  which  he  was  present  in  Poo-to,  Fortune  sug- 
gests that  the  sudden  appearance  of  a  Chinaman  with  pea- 
cock-feather and  "pig-tail"  might  possibly  produce  similar 
effects  on  a  Christian  congregation.  Himself  a  less  preju- 
diced observer,  he  was  impressed  by  the  seriousness  of 
Buddhist  services.3 

The  ethical  qualities  now  noticed  are  specially  conspicu- 
versions     ous  in  the  rich  store  of  apologues,  which  the  Budd- 
have  partly  originated  in  China,  but  in   the 


main  translated  from  the   Sanscrit.      To  most  of 
these    our  only  access  is  through    the  Chinese   version. 


1  It  commemorates  the  victories  of  Buddhism  over  Brahmanism,  and  Buddha's  abjuration 
of  ascetic  habits.  See  Wurm,  p.  199;  Girard,  II.  100 ;  Doolittle,  II.  36:  Bastian,  Peking, 
p.  97. 

s  II.  p.  231.  s   Wanderings,  p.  176. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  809 

Julien's  compilation  of  these  fables l  illustrates  the  genial 
and  practical  sides  of  Buddhism,  its  clear  perception  of 
the  facts  of  experience  and  the  conditions  of  character,  as 
well  as  its  tender  and  wide-reaching  humanity. 

In  all  these  apologues  the  Buddha  speaks  either  in  per- 
son or  by  implication  in  his  law,  as  a  human  helper  Their  hu- 
and  guide.  He  is  not  a  metaphysician,  but  a  So-  JJJJpjJ^ 
cratic  person  unmasking  pretence,  dividing  the  tkai  sense- 
shadow  of  things  from  their  substance.  As  where  he 
shows  the  Brahman  who  would  burn  his  own  body,  that  it 
is  better  to  burn  the  passions  of  his  heart  (xvi.)  ;  or  likens 
the  ascetic  who  sought  deliverance  by  trying  to  punish  this 
ever-shifting  envelope  of  the  soul,  to  the  sailor  who  made 
a  mark  on  the  sea  where  he  had  lost  a  treasure,  that  he 
might  know  where  to  look  for  it  again  (Ixix.) ;  or  rebukes 
the  conceited  priest  who  went  about  with  a  light  to  en- 
lighten the  blind  world,  while  unable  to  see  with  his  own 
eyes  (Ixii.) ;  and  the  elephant-tamer  who  could  subdue  the 
mouth,  body,  and  will  of  his  beast,  but  not  his  own  (xv.)  ; 
or  humbles  the  vain-glorious  pretender  to  mastery  in  every 
form  of  art,  science,  or  business,  by  teaching  him  unimag- 
ined  powers  of  mastering  the  senses  by  the  purity  and 
patience  of  the  law  (iii.). 

He  is  the  counsellor  to  all  rational  ways  of  conduct  ; 
praising  the  prudence  of  the  tortoise  who  draws  in  her 
head  in  danger,  and  the  elephant  who  concealed  his  sensi- 
tive trunk  in  battle,  as  the  wise  man  his  tongue  (xxxv., 
Ixxix.)  ;  reproving  expectations  of  success  not  earned  by 
fulfilling  its  conditions,  nor  by  paying  regard  to  one's  own 
proper  fitness  and  function,  —  as  the  owl  was  plucked  and 
driven  out  of  the  palace  for  pretending  to  the  rewards  of 


1  Conies  et  Apologues  Indiens  (et  Chin\  Paris,  1860.  Hardwick's  sweeping  assertions 
(Christ  and  other  Masters,  II.  107)  as  to  the  depravity  of  Buddhist  bonzes  are  based,  for 
China,  on  such  worthless  authority  as  Gutzlaff,  one  of  the  shallowest  and  most  prejudiced  of 
writers. 


8lO  BELIEFS. 

singing  birds  (iv.)  ;  and  as  the  savage,  whose  theft  of  royal 
dresses  and  pretence  that  they  were  descended  from  his 
fathers  was  detected  by  his  ignorant  way  of  putting  them 
on  (Ivii.)  ;  and  as  the  foolish  man  who  cut  down  his  fruit- 
tree  to  get  at  the  fruit  before  it  was  ripe,  "  like  a  seeker 
of  the  law  who  expects  virtue  without  paying  the  price 
in  disciplines  (xlv.)  ;  and  even  as  Ananda  did  not  realize 
by  how  many  lives  and  toils  the  Buddhahood  was  earned, 
like  the  boy  who  imagined  pearls  were  produced  in  a  jar 
(Ixxxvi.). 

He  is  a  mentor,  warning  against  every-day  perils  to  vir- 
Their  tue>  anc^  unnoted  obstacles  in  the  right  way.  The 
spiritual  hidden  treasure  of  gold  is  a  poisonous  snake  to  the 
discoverer  (xi.)  ;  the  bit  of  paper  picked  up  in  the 
street  and  still  keeping  the  perfume  of  the  spices  it  covered, 
and  the  infection  of  spoiled  fish  from  the  string  with  which 
it  was  tied,  teach  the  power  of  contacts  unperceived  and 
forgotten  to  induce  permanent  habits  (Ixxii.)  ;  the  man  who 
gives  up  the  whole  law  because  he  has  broken  a  single  pre- 
cept is  like  one  who  cast  away  all  his  oxen  because  a  beast 
had  destroyed  one  (Iv.). 

He  sees  the  humor  hidden  in  human  foibles  and  pre- 
tences, likening  their  absurdity  to  one's  planting  roasted 
seeds  because  they  tasted  better  than  raw  ones  (Ixvii.)  ; 
and  satirizes  superstition  in  the  surprise  felt  by  the  god  of 
thunder,  who,  when  about  to  punish  one  who  had  disobeyed 
his  father,  was  asked,  "  Where  were  you  when  my  father 
did  the  same  thing  to  his  father  ?  "  (cxxi.)  He  is  earnest 
in  his  rebuke  of  the  mock  piety  that  goes  about  softly  like 
the  cat  in  the  rosary  necklace,  but  with  heart  cruel  as 
wolves  (cxxv.).1 

We  observe,  too,  a  keen  sense  of  the  inevitable  things  in 
human  life.  The  burdens  of  the  body  and  the  illusions  of 
desire  are  symbolized  and  represented  in  multifold  ways 

1  These  last  two  apologues  are  of  Chinese  origin. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  ^        

(cxi.,  xxiii.).  The  mirage  that  deceives  the  thirsty  traveler 
is  the  dream  of  one  who  is  enthralled  by  the  eagerness  of 
his  wishes  (xlii.)  ;  and  the  three  Brahmans,  who,  after  vain 
attempts  at  concealing  themselves  from  the  destiny  which 
had  appointed  them  to  die  at  a  certain  time,  came  bravely 
forth  to  meet  it,  testify  that  man  has  no  refuge  but  virtue 
(xii.). 

Joined  to  this  full  appreciation  of  the  evils  of  life  is  an 
unwavering  faith  in  the  supremacy  of  the  law  of  Theirfaith 
love.  A  minister,  obtaining  great  subsidies  from  in  the  law 

,  of  love. 

his  master  on  the  promise  to  construct  a  drum 
that  shall  be  heard  all  over  the  empire,  expends  them  for 
garments  and  food  which  he  distributes  among  the  poor, 
summoned  from  all  the  towns  and  highways  ;  and  when 
the  Emperor  asks  for  his  drum,  replies,  "  Go  through  all 
your  dominions  and  listen.  Your  drum  is  Buddha's  law 
of  love  "  (i.). 

The  far-reaching  providence  of  this  infinite  law,  the  care 
of  Buddha  for  his  creatures,  affords  quaint  Oriental  ana- 
logues to  the  Christian  Fatherhood  that  watches  the  spar- 
row's fall,  and  numbers  the  hairs  of  the  head,  and  shares 
the  pain  which  befalls  the  least ;  while  it  adds  a  gospel  of 
tenderness  to  the  lower  creatures  peculiar  to  itself.  Buddha 
converts  himself  into  a  stag,  that  he  may  make  of  his  own 
body  a  bridge  to  transport  wild  animals  fleeing  from  burn- 
ing woods,  and  perishes  in  the  final  effort  to  bear  the  weight 
of  a  hare  (Ixxx.).  What  a  triumphant  vindication  of  Nir- 
vana is  in  the  legend  that,  on  awaking  from  its  sleep  to 
find  that  a  bird  had  built  her  nest  and  laid  her  eggs  upon 
his  head,  he  forthwith  subdues  his  senses  to  another  dream 
lest  he  should  disturb  her,  and  moves  not  till  the  young 
birds  have  flown  (Ixxxv.)  ! 


As  a  popular  religion  in  China,  Buddhism  reflects  the 


8l2  BELIEFS. 

concrete  and  prudential  habits  of  the  race  ;  which  natur- 
ally  selects  for  development  its  latest  stage,  char- 
acterized,  as  we  have  seen,  by  a  semi-mystical 
the  stage  devotion  to  official  or  providential  ideas.  In  this 
depeTcT-™1  stage  °f  a  religion,  morality  is  no  longer  indepen- 
ences.  dent.  It  rests  on  personal  sanctions  and  com- 
mands, not  on  the  inherent  authority  of  principles.  The 
world  is  governed  by  a  more-  or  less  humanized  will  and 
intent.  The  highest  good  becomes  a  result  of  private  peti- 
tion or  ecclesiastical  relations  symbolized  in  fixed  disci- 
plines, liturgies,  invocations,  and  formulas  manifold.1 

That  genius  for  abstract  thought  in  which  the  faith  be- 
gan  nas  been  supplanted  by  a  worship  of  concrete 
personages,  from  whom  all  blessings  are  derived. 
eentrated,    The  multiplicity  of  official  beings  in  the  later  stages 
butdif-      Of  Buddhism  has  been   already  referred  to.     The 

fused  ; 

contrasted  liberalism  of  the  Mongol  pursued  a  method  oppo- 
site to  that  of  the  exclusive  temperament  of  the 
Christian  Shemito-Christian,  which  has  concentrated  this  per- 
sonal homage  upon  one  Supreme  God  and  Christ, 
of  whom  the  ecclesiastical  mediators  and  officials  are  but 
derivatives.  In  the  later  phases  of  Buddhism,  the  way  to 
the  Buddhaship  was  made  wide  and  free.  Sakya  himself 
was  believed  to  have  said  that  the  numbers  of  perfected 
persons  was  countless.2  Innumerable  Dhyani  Bodhisattvas 
awaited  their  time  to  re-enter  the  world  as  Buddhas,  with  a 
patience  to  which  a  million  years  was  as  a  day,  and  in  a 
succession  which  knew  neither  beginning  nor  end.  How 
wonderful  this  expansion  of  the  idea  of  self-renunciation  for 
the  sake  of  mankind  into  a  competition  of  millions  for  the 
highest  work  and  reward,  without  mutual  interference  or 
haste  to  displace  each  other  ! 

1  This  change  Is  expressed  in  Buddhism  by  the  substitution  of  liturgies  for  the  older  Prati- 
tnokskas,  or  rules  of  discipline.     See  Catetta,  p.  397. 
8  Mahapari-nirvana  ;  Catena,  186. 


CHINESE     BUDDHISM.  813 

So  vast  a  success  in  achieving  the  Buddhaship  would 
seem  likely  to  cheapen  its  value,  and  reduce  the  Effects  of 
conditions  of  character  to  a  mere  shell  of  nominal 
self-disciplines  ;  but  this  effect  was  in  a  measure 
obviated  by  the  concrete  meaning  and  ethical  em-  vson  of 
phasis  given  to  the  religious  consciousness.  The  Deity- 
practical  result  of  an  infinite  subdivision  of  personal  Deity 
was  to  give  something  like  infinite  expansion  to  the  ideal 
of  personal  virtue ;  the  essence,  conditions,  and  laws  of 
manifestation  in  all  these  Buddhas  being  (humanly)  identi- 
cal, as  if  the  whole  were  but  the  expression  of  one  instant 
divine  consciousness  or  aim.  Through  kalpas  of  time,  as 
unchanging  in  spiritual  contents  as  they  were  inconceivable 
in  their  reach,  spread  the  eternal  patience  of  these  hosts  of 
a  Divine  humanity  ;  like  the  beating  of  a  single  heart,  for 
ever  calm  and  for  ever  full.  The  open  door  to  Buddhaship, 
and  the  easy  terms  of  pardon  with  which  the  Mahayana  re- 
placed the  rigid  exaction  of  penance  by  the  early  church, 
popularized  the  religion,  and  smoothed  the  passage  for  hu- 
man sympathies  through  the  old  heavens  of  inexorable  law 
and  abstract  logic,  to  familiar  relations  with  these  spiritual 
ideals  of  power  and  love.  The  affections  of  the  worshipper 
became  more  or  less  concentrated  upon  a  few  cherished 
names  and  personalities  which  represented  the  whole  ; 
while  the  one  essential  meaning  of  virtue  was  allowed  to 
'  stand  valid  in  every  new  ideal  life  to  which  mythology  or 
history  might  ascribe  it. 

In  this  arithmetical  field,  the  Chinese  have  been  very 
productive.  They  have  three  popular  female  divin-  The  Fopu- 
ities,  and  three  Buddhas,  —  Kacjapa  (or  Amitabha), 
Sakya,  and  Maitreya,  —  covering  respectively  the 
past,  present,  and  future,  and  usually  combined  in  triple 
groups  in  their  temples  ; 1  a  breadth  of  artistic  conception 

1  Bastian,  Peking,  p.  59  ;  Lassen,  II.  714,  715. 


8 14  BELIEFS. 

befitting  their  historical  civilization.  Upon  three  or  four  of 
the  traditional  Bodhisattvas,  the  Chinese  Buddhists  have 
lavished  their  whole  capacity  of  prayer  and  trust. 

I.  Maitreya,  "  the  Loving  One,"  the  beloved  disciple  of 
Maitriya  Sakya,  and  by  him  designated  as  his  successor 
"the  LOV-  after  five  thousand  years  should  have  exhausted 
the  moral  resources  of  the  present  aeon,  and  the 
world  have  come  to  need  another  Saviour  ;  the  Messiah  of 
all  sects  and  schools  of  Buddhism,  whose  advent  shall  rec- 
tify all  errors,  and  make  amends  for  all  sorrow,1  —  has  ever 
been  the  inspiration  of  all  such  intellectual  reforms  as  were 
too  progressive  to  be  ascribed  to  Buddha  himself.2  His 
bosom  was.  the  haven  for  which  alone  the  pious  "  Pilgrim  " 
longed  in  his  last  hour,3  after  dividing  his  goods  among  the 
poor,  and  praying  that  all  the  good  he  might  have  done  in 
life  should  be  credited  to  his  fellow-men  ;  the  haven  which 
all  heavy-laden  souls  in  every  strait  have  desired,  through- 
out the  Buddhist  world.  Maitreya,  beyond  question,  holds 
the  first  place  in  the  Chinese  heart.  Throughout  the 
empire  his  image  stands  in  the  temples,  crowned,  often 
gigantic,  as  the  all-embracing  Possibility  of  the  Future  ; 
benignant  and  even  smiling,  bearing  the  lotus  of  a  signifi- 
cant legend.  It  is  the  symbol  of  a  Buddhaship,  which,  as 
belonging  to  the  saint  whose  flower  should  be  first  to 
blossom,  would  have  been  Maitreya' s  with  all  its  attendant 
authority,  had  not  Sakya  exchanged  the  flower-pot  with  his 
own  while  the  possessor  slept.4  Maitreya  is  the  ideal  of 
pure  spiritual  liberty  as  well  as  of  love,  a  school  of  phi- 
losophy being  ascribed  to  him,  which  insists,  against  all 
metaphysical  objections,  on  the  perfectibility  of  the  soul, 
and  its  capability  of  full  deliverance  from  illusion.5  That 
he  alone  is  honored  by  all  Buddhists  alike,  seems  to  point 

1  Koeppen,  I.  327.  2  Wassil.,  p.  131  ;  Bastian,  p.  62. 

3   Vie  de  Hiouen  Thsang,  p.  345. 

*  Bastian,  pp.  9,  14,  70;  Wurm,  p.  192.  '  Wassil.,  p.  316. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  815 

to  him  as  the  earliest  of  the  Bodhisattvas,1  and  his  name 
indicates  the  essence  of  the  Buddhist  faith. 

II.  Mandshusri,  "the    Mild   and  Holy,"  represents  the 
demand  of  later  Buddhist  sentiment  for  a  historical 

First  Cause.  He  stands  for  creative  wisdom,  order, 
harmony,  symbolized  by  sword  and  book,  in  atti-  Teacher, 
tudes  of  activity,  and  associated  in  India  with  Sarasvati, 
consort  of  Brahma-  and  his  creative  word.2  There  are 
hints  of  his  historic  reality  ;  but  a  large  mythical  basis  is 
implied  in  his  correspondence  to  Nagarjuna,  as  embodi- 
ment of  the  whole  Mahayana  system.3  Evidently  of  Hindu 
origin,  he  is  the  centre  of  a  large  group  of  Chinese  legends 
and  traditions  usually  pointing  to  India.  The  grand  pros- 
elyter  and  preacher  of  the  faith,  he  is  believed  to  have  not 
only  taught  twelve  kinds  of  Sutras  on  the  snowy  heights 
of  the  Himalaya,4  but  to  have  drained  the  valleys  of  Nepal, 
and  civilized  its  tribes.5 

III.  "  Avalokiteswara,  'the  Condescending,'  is  the  Provi- 
dence as  Mandshusri  is  the  Framer  of  the  world,"  Avaiokit- 
says  Koeppen,6  who  even  finds  him  analogous  to  ^Iworid- 
the  Holy  Spirit  in  Christian  doctrine.     He  it  is  who  providence, 
inspires  the   historic  movement  of   the  Buddhist  Church. 
His  worship  is  of  South-Indian  origin,7  but  he  has  appeared 
in  a  great  variety  of  regions,  and  under  numerous  forms. 
He  it  is,  whose  oath  to  save  every  creature  before  permit- 
ting  himself   the   repose   of    Nirvana   is  cherished  as  an 
all-sufficient  solution  of  sorrow  and  sin,    by  all   Buddhist 
hearts.     Born  of  the  Lotus,  to  him  is  addressed  the  mysti- 


1  Koeppen,  II.  17.     According  to  Eitel's  Handbook,  statues  were  erected  to  him  as  early 
as  3  50  B.  c. 

2  Bastinn,  pp.  36,  46,  361  ;  Kceppen,  II.  23. 

3  Koeppen,  II.  21  ;  Wassil.,  p.  132  ;  Burnouf,  p.  101.  *  Wassil.,  p.  131. 
6  Lotus,  p.  505.                                                 c  Koeppen,  II.  23:  Wurm,  p.  195. 

1  Catena,  p.  386. 


8l6  BELIEFS. 

cally  potent  cry  of  all  Thibetan  disciples,  "  Om  mani  padme 
hum."1  His  cultus  is  certainly  very  ancient.  Fahian 
found  him  associated  in  India  with  Mandshusri  by  the 
Mahayana  school,  in  the  third  century.2  Apostle  to  Cen- 
tral Asia,  he  is  called  in  Thibet  "  the  Great  Compassionate 
One,"  "  the  Almighty,  beholding  with  his  own  eyes  ;  "  and 
in  India  he  is  Padmapani,  "  Bearer  of  the  Lotus."  3  Hiouen- 
thsang  says  that  when  his  statues,  set  up  to  mark  the 
bounds  of  the  Holy  Land  of  Magadha,  sank  earthwards,  it 
was  a  sign  that  faith  was  failing  ;  and  that  when  he  him- 
self saw  them,  they  were  buried  up  to  the  breast.4  The 
pious  pilgrim  read  his  Sutra  with  fervor,  when  crossing 
the  desert  with  no  other  guide  than  the  slant  of  his  own 
shadow  on  the  ground  along  the  lifeless  wastes  ;  and 
lifted  up  to  him  alone  the  ceaseless  prayer  for  aid  to  fulfil 
his  vow  never  to  return  to  China  till  he  had  seen  the 
cradle-land  of  the  faith.5  All  prayers  offered  before  this 
Bodhisattva's  image  with  sincerity  were,  he  tells  us,  heard 
and  answered  ;  6  and  he  recounts  the  legend  of  the  god's 
appearance  as  a  Man  of  Gold  to  one  whose  long  affliction 
made  him  sigh  for  death,  to  warn  him  against  despair  and 
counsel  him  to  endure  patiently,  with  thoughts  turned 
towards  leading  others  into  peace.7  The  Prajna-Paramita 
is  dedicated  to  Avalokiteswara,  as  the  highest  fruit  of  the 
intellect  offered  to  the  genius  of  humanity. 

The  Sutra  inscribed  with  his  name  8  is  exceedingly  pop- 
ular in  China.     It  affirms  that  if  untold  millions 

His  Sutra.  .  . 

were  in  anguish  they  need  but  hear  this  name  and 
invoke  it  to  be  delivered,  each  out  of  his  special  grief  how- 
ever terrible ;  the  forces  of  Nature  being  made  subject, 
and  all  wicked  purposes  converted  into  love,  in  the  instant 
of  the  prayer,  and  all  desires  for  good  fulfilled.  This  is 
the  Buddhist  Vishnu,  manifested  in  every  land  and  in 

"  O  the  Jewel  in  the  Lotus."     Amen!  2  Bud.  Pilgr.,  p.  60. 

3  Puini,  Intro,  to  Avalok.  Sutra  mAtsnma  Gusa.  *  Julifn,  p.  741. 

5  Ibid.,  pp.  28,  29.  o  Ibid.,  p.  iSo.  ''  Ibid.,  p.  146.  8  Lotus,  ch.  xxvi. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  8l/ 

every  avatdra  in  which  it  is  possible  to  succor  others  by 
assuming  a  common  nature  with  the  object  he  would  save. 
He  is  "  the  God  who  gives  freedom  from  fear."  He  is,  in 
sum,  the  constant  Providence  of  the  world  till  Maitreya 
shall  come  ;  and  in  the  later  literature  he  becomes  the  son 
of  Amitabha,  the  most  prominent  name  of  Deity  in  the 
Buddhism  of  the  North.  He  is  even  associated  with  the 
earliest  use  of  writing  in  the  diffusion  of  the  Law.1 

IV.     Following  a  natural  association  of  ideas,  the  Chi- 
nese  have   translated  the   Sanscrit  name   of   this  Thefemaie 
Bodhisattva  by  the  word  Kwan-shai-yin,  or  "  Man-  Saviour, 
ifested  Voice  ; "  and  thence,  by  some  process  not  R^tio'ns 
easily  explained,   transformed  him    into   a  female,   ^°  Avaiok- 
Kwan-yin.2     It  is  possible  that  he  has  been  here 
identified  with  an  older  national  divinity.     Native  tradi- 
tions  describe    Kwan-yin    as    the   daughter   of   a   wicked 
king,  but  born  amidst  miracle  and  endowed  with  mirac- 
ulous   wisdom.      Resolved,   against    her    father's    will,    to 
dedicate  herself    to  religious    instead  of  married  life,  she 
endures    a    series     of    cruel    punishments ;    miraculously 
guarded   and   aided,  like   Cinderella  in  the  Western  tale, 
by  higher  powers,  who  share  her  drudgery  and  sway  the 
elements  in  her  behalf.     But  at  last  comes  the  tragedy  of 
martyrdom,  and  the  very  beasts  bear  her  away  like  angels. 
When  she  passes  through  the  hells,  with  folded  hands  in- 
voking Amitabha  and  looking  upon  the  agonies  of  sinners, 
hosts  of  flowers  rain  down  from  heaven  and  burst  upward 
from  the  earth,  and  the  instruments  of  torture  are  swept 
away.     As   if   from   a  dream   she  awakes    in   presence  of 
Buddha,   in   a   hermitage,   whence   she  is   transported   by 
a  Naga  to  the  island  of  Poo-to  on   the   coast  of    China. 

1  Catena,  p.  386. 

2  Beal  thinks  the  sex  of  Kwan-yin  originated  in  the  sakti,  or  "manifestation"  by  speech 
pertaining  to   each   divinity   in    Hindu   religion.     In  this  case,  the  sakti  of  Amitabha  was 
Avalokiteswara,  and  hence  Kwan-yin  (R.  As.  Soc.  1866). 

52 


8l8  BELIEFS. 

Here,  throned  in  the  water-lily,  she  delivers  the  man- 
ners from  wreck,  like  Helen  in  the  Orestes-legend  of  the 
Greeks  ;  heals  the  sick,  and  performs  miracles  of  love  in 
answer  to  prayer.1 

Her  liturgy,  apparently  drawn  up  by  a  Ming  monarch 
Her  lit-  (J4I2)»  though  evidently  based  on  older  traditions 
«rgy.  and  rituals,  has  curious  resemblance  to  modern 
Christian  liturgies  in  form  ;  and,  so  far,  might  be  sup- 
posed to  proceed  from  the  Catholic  Church.  But  it  con- 
tains no  allusion  to  any  faith  foreign  to  Buddhism.  It  is 
recited  with  offerings  of  flowers  and  incense,  symbolic  of 
the  harmonies  of  heaven  and  its  own  spiritual  perfume, 
and  with  consecration  of  the  body  as  a  world  of  "  atoms 
evolved  from  the  universe,  to  be  united  in  one  orderly 
whole  ;  as  a  type  of  the  pure  union  of  all  sentient  crea- 
tures with  the  heart  of  Buddha."2. 

The  liturgy  recounts  Kwan-yin's  vow  to  save  all  living 
beings  ;  recites  many  sacred  names  and  sentences  ;  declares 
the  miraculous  powers  of  the  true  worshipper,  which  re- 
mind us  of  the  New  Testament  promises  to  disciples  that 
they  should  heal  the  sick,  and  take  up  deadly  things  un- 
harmed ;  and  ends  with  formal  confession  of  sins  and 
vows  of  repentance,  and  with  prayers  that  all  men  may 
attain  the  truth,  and  revere  the  holy  church  of  Buddha.3 

Kwan-yin  is  the  advocate  and  redeemer  of  souls  from 
the  prison  of  remorse,  and  at  the  judgment  after  death.4 
All-hearing  and  all-mastering,  she  has  a  thousand  eyes  and 
arms,  which  alike  in  China,  Japan,  and  elsewhere  are  sym- 
bolic of  her  universality  in  thought  and  love.  The  statues 
represent  her  hovering  in  white  robe  over  a  stormy  sea,  or 
sitting  on  a  lotus  holding  a  child  in  her  arms,  with  two 

1  Wurm,  p.  194. 

s  Beal,  p.  402.  The  attempt  to  connect  the  Kwan-yin  cultus  with  the  Nestorians  of  Central 
Asia,  and  of  the  Sin-gan-fou  inscription,  is  peculiarly  unfortunate ;  since  this  sect  of  Christian 
heretics  were  noted  especially  for  refusing  worship  to  the  Virgin,  and  rejecting  images  and 
celibacy,  constant  elements  of  the  Buddhist  creed. 

8  Ibid.,  398-409-  *  La  Chine  Ouverte,  p.  152. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM. 

more  little  ones  at  her  feet,1  —  resemblances  which  of 
course  convinced  the  earlier  missionaries  of  the  Chris- 
tian origin  of  her  worship.  She  is  dispenser  of  mercy, 
abolisher  of  the  hells,  redeemer  of  sinners  and  sufferers 
by  her  own  pains.2 

V.  But  Kwan-yin,  as  manifestation  by  speech,  must  be 
referred  to  some  invisible  essence  whose  spirit  she  Amitabha, 
reflects  into  the  actual  world  of  sorrow  and  sin;  the"Com- 

passionate 

and  this  is  Amitabha,  "  the  great  compassionate  Heart." 
Heart,  and  merciful  Father  of  all  that  lives."3  The 
name  of  this  latest  (?)  of  the  Bodhisattvas,  with  whom 
Kwan-yin  is  practically  one  in  Chinese  faith,  signifies 
Boundless  Light,  and  has  received  the  full  meaning  of 
the  Hindu  Adityas,  or  Immortals.  His  name,  O-mi-to-fo, 
is  of  all  dhardni  the  most  potent  ;  it  is  everywhere  recited 
by  the  Buddhist  tribes  with  all  the  reverence  accorded  in 
Christendom  to  the  name  of  the  Trinity,  or  in  Islam  to  the 
"Allah  Akbar."  Eighty-four  thousand  methods  of  salva- 
tion are  folded  in  its  letters.  As  Mandshusri  is  the 
World-framer,  and  Avalokiteswara  the  World-providence, 
so  Amitabha  is  the  compensation  for  earthly  ills  to  the 
good  beyond  death.  When  the  heavens  of  con-  His  Para- 
templation  were  planted  above  the  mansions  of  dise- 
the  old  Brahmanical  gods,  these  heavens  became  grad- 
ually penetrated  by  a  living  love  and  pity,  a  true  Buddhist 
humanity,  radiating  through  their  purity,  repose,  and  bliss.* 
In  the  infinite  depths,  beyond  millions  of  worlds  of  birth 
and  death,  as  beyond  the  sunset  and  night  of  this  life, 
those  rivers  of  everlasting  mercy  flow  between  banks  of 
precious  stone  and  over  golden  sands,  amidst  the  perfume 
of  flowers  and  refreshing  dews,  and  all  creatures  that  can 

1  Bastian,  p.  46.  J  Chinese  Repository,  April,  1841. 

8  Kwan-yin  Liturgy  (Beal,  409);  also  Tsing-tu-wen,  Ibid.,  374;  Schott,  Buddh.  in  Hoch- 
Asien.  4  Catena,  p  379;  Bastian,  p.  228. 


820  BELIEFS. 

minister  to  human  joy.  In  this  heathen  Beulah,  angels  in- 
spired by  Amitabha,  in  form  of  birds,  warble  praises  of 
the  Highest  and  of  his  Law  ;  and  forests  wave  in  melo- 
dious measure,  filling  the  hearts  of  the  blessed  with  admi- 
ration and  love.  Whoso  is'  born  there  shall  never  again 
know  birth  ;  nor  shall  dread  of  transmigration  disturb  his 
rest.  He  whose  karma  shall  testify  of  an  unworldly  heart 
and  clear  mind  shall  be  blest  with  the  vision  of  Amitabha 
and  his  saints  at  the  last,  and  be  at  once  transported  to  this 
immortal  abode. 

Such  the  marvellous  transformation  of  the  old  Nirvana 
Chinese  of  abstraction  to  meet  the  concrete  genius  of  the 
transform*.  Cnmese  ;  —  from  negation  of  the  visible  composite 

tion  of  Nir-  °  x 

vana.  universe  into  crystallization  of  all  known  aesthetic 
forms  in  an  invisible  creation. 

And  what  are  the  conditions  of  this  heavenly  bliss  ?  "  To 
The  con-  take  refuge  with  this  loving  Father  with  believ- 
ditionsof  mg  heart,  and  thus  secure  the  destruction  of  sins, 
though  numberless  as  the  sands  of  Ganges."  The 
root  of  virtue  is  faith,  and  wisdom  is  its  child.  Not  to 
doubt,  but  to  faith,  "  one's  inner  heart  expands  like  a  flower 
from  the  bud  ;  he  beholds  Buddha  and  comprehends  his 
law."  Not  conformity  nor  nonconformity,  but  belief  in  the 
loving  God  is  salvation.1 

But  faith  is  not  all.2  This  Paradise  is  not  of  the  heart 
only  ;  it  must  be  made  by  labor,  like  an  artist's  work.3  "  If 
one  hunger  and  I  feed  him,  or  freeze  and  I  warm  him  with 
clothing,  'tis  a  great  benefit.  How  much  greater  if  I  cause 
all  beings  to  be  freed  into  endless  joy  !  "  4 

Nor  must  just  atonement  be  avoided  :  — 

"  A  sufferer  from  pain   should  say  to  himself,  '  By  reason  of  my 


"  Discourse  of  the  Paradise"  of  Amitabha  ;   see  Catena,  pp.  374,  376. 
"  I  said  to  a  sick  man:   '  If  you  believe,  you  can  be  restored;'  giving  him  a  recipe,  and 
bidding  him  pray  to  Amitabha  and  then  take  the  medicine.      He  did  so,  and  was   cured." 
(Ibid) 

3  Ibid.  ;  Schott,  ut  supra,  p.  70.  *  Ibid.,  p.  91. 


CHINESE   BUDDHISM.  821 

sins  I  have  come  into  this  state.'  He  is  purified  by  the  desire  to 
bring  into  Paradise  all  whom  he  has  injured.  The  silkworm  breeder 
should  say,  *  My  silk-making  has  caused  the  death  of  living  creatures, 
and  I  pray  Amitabha  to  deliver  all  these  my  victims.'  The  wine- 
dealer  should  say,  '  May  all  creatures  harmed  or  ruined  by  misuse  of 
the  noble  wine  be  restored.'  The  physician  should  say,  'When 
called  to  the  sick,  I  will  make  haste  to  save  him,  without  asking 
whether  he  be  rich  or  poor,  great  or  humble.'"1 

Another  condition  is  a  liberal  recognition  of  the  mixed 
nature  of  human  character  and  conduct  :  — 

"  Buddha  said  to  Ananda  :  '  There  are  those  who  have  done  good 
in  this  life  and  yet  shall  receive  punishment  ;  and  those  who  have 
done  evil,  yet  shall  enter  a  heaven  of  the  Gods.'  "2 

"  What  is  Amitabha's  promised  deliverance  ?     Is  it  annihilation  of 
all  these  beings  ?     Not  so;  but  their  restoration  to  the  one 
condition  of  happiness,  in  which  all  were  included  before  the  Amit 
delusions  of  sense  led  them  astray."  8     "  Man  never  dies  ;  Life 
the  soul  inhabits  the  body  for  a  time,  but  leaves  it  again  ; 
the  soul  is  my  self,  the  body  only  my  dwelling-place.     Birth  is  not 
birth  ;  there  is  a  soul  already  existent  when  the  body  comes  to  it. 
Death  is  not  death  ;  a  soul  departs  and  the  body  falls.     Men  of  this 
world  know  nothing  of  their  souls,  but  see  only  their  bodies  ;  so  love 
life  and  hate  death.     Do  they  not  need  compassion  ?     Soul  comes  and 
goes  because  of  its  actions,  whose  effects  are  retribution.      This  is 
nature's  law.     Shall  we  not  watch  carefully  over  our  actions  ?"  4 

The   sensuous   element    in  Amitabha's    heaven  is  not 
stronger  than  that  pictured  in  the  Apocalyptic  New  Itg  sensu- 
Jerusalem  ;  and,  like  that,  is  too  closely  dependent 


on    moral   and    spiritual   conditions   to  be  in  any  s> 
sense  carnal.     One  school  goes  so  far  as  to  explain  it  as 
wholly  symbolical  and  transcendental.5      "Men   object  to 
believing  in  this  final  abode  of  the  good,"  says  Jin-chau  ; 

1  Ibid.,  pp.  107-110.  2  Ibid.,  p.  74. 

3  Confessional  Service  of  Kwan-yin  (R.  A.  S.  1866,  p.  418). 

*  Tsing-ttt-wen,  in  Schott,  p.  91  ;    also  Catena,  p.  121. 

6  Bastian,  p.  252.  Hardwick,  for  whose  mind  holiness  is  inseparable  from  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ,  finds  no  sign  of  this  virtue  in  the  Buddhist  paradise,  and  considers  it  to  have  no 
common  ground  with  the  Heaven  "  prefigured  in  the  glowing  page  of  the  Apocalypse." 
II.  p.  106. 


822  BELIEFS. 

"  whereas  they  ought  to  say  that  the  reward  of  the  soul  is 
fitly  represented  as  invisible."  We  must  observe,  too,  that 
the  fatalism  of  the  karma  is  here  transfused  with  ethical 
freedom.  There  is  no  distinction  of  caste  in  this  heaven 
of  Amitabha,  nor  of  sex,  nor  rank,  and  its  doors  are  open 
to  all  ;  while  the  old  Nirvana  appealed  to  renouncers  of 
the  world  only.  The  Bodhisattva  faith  is  of  the  people  ; 
its  rewards  follow  the  good  life  close  upon  death,  and  its 
summons  is  simply  to  victory  over  evil  in  the  heart  and 
life. 

The  Thibetans  believe  that  "  Amida's  Word  "  inspired 
Amida's  3.  Saviour  (Usaktchi)  to  descend  through  all  the 
spheres  of  retribution  and  open  wide  their  doors  ; 
heii.  his  falling  tears  bloom  into  Buddhas,  strong  to  save 
those  whom  all  his  weary  toils  failed  to  convert.  Usaktchi 
is  the  Thibetan  Kwan-yin ;  and  he  delivers  the  ship- 
wrecked drifting  from  the  spirit-isles,  as  she  succors  those 
who  are  drifting  on  the  seas  of  this  world.1 

Amida,  like  all  the  Bodhisattvas,  was  himself  altogether 
The  Di-  human.  The  Sutras  say  that,  when  a  king  in  some 
vine  as  former  kalpa,  he  became  a  monk,  and  on  reaching 
sainthood  uttered  forty-eight  wishes  for  the  welfare 
of  mankind.  It  is  to  fulfil  these  that  he  now  dwells  as 
Buddha  in  his  Western  heaven.2  This  pure  humanity  of 
the  Divine  has  made  Buddhism  attractive  to  the  Chinese 
in  spite  of  its  abstract  thinking  and  its  unworldly  aim. 
The  hold  of  the  Amitabha  faith  on  the  people  of  China 
and  Japan  cannot  be  exaggerated.8  Its  emphasis  on 
"  clear  ideas,"  its  effort  to  remove  external  impediments 
to  the  pure  light  of  intuition,  and  its  interfusion  of  abstract 
thought  with  practical  faith  a^id  love,  have  commended  to 

1  Bastian,  pp.  262,  263.     The  Hak-kas,  a  mountain  tribe  in  China,  ascribe  an  immediate 
reward  to  the  righteous  after  death,  in  the  stars,  and  annihilation  to  the  wicked;  but  they 
ridicule  alike  the  Amida  heaven  in  the  West,  and  the    Buddhist  hells.    (Eitel,  in  Notes  and 
Queries,  I.  No.  xii.) 

2  Bastian,  p.  228.  s  Beal,  R.  A.  S.  1866. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  823 

the  former  prosaic  race  a  system  whose  speculative  basis 
and   logic    are   beyond   the   conceptions   of   the    mass   of 


men.J 


The  special  origin  and  connection  of  these  various  forms 
of  personal  worship  are  of  less  importance  to  uni-  ^^ 
versal  religion  than  the  fact  that  they  combine  in  sonai 
Buddhism    to   cover  all    those   great   demands   of  Srm*  of 

Buddhist 

popular  religious  experience  which  Christianity  has   worship 
claimed  exclusive   power  and  authority   to   meet  ; 
while  equally  penetrated  by  inspirations  of   duty 
and  love.     With    mystic   freedom    they  melt   into 
each  other  ;  showing  that  the  principles  that  animate  the 
whole  are  of  far  more  vitality  than  any  special  form  or 
name  that  they  assume. 


The  review  now  given  of  the  intellectual  and  practical 
elements  of  Buddhism   enables  us  to  note  several  General 
important  conclusions  concerning  it.  conciu- 

1  sions  con- 

I.  Its  theoretic  unselfishness,  reaching  into  the  «ming 
highest  ideal  spheres  through  innumerable  personal  ^^T' 
embodiments  and  innumerable  worlds  and  cycles.      fishness. 

II.  Its  assertion  of  an  Absolute  Law  and  Substance  be- 
hind these  personal  manifestations  ;  a  Law  whose  Affirmation 
speculative  pursuit  through  all  negations  and  ab-  ofLaw- 
stract  contemplations  was  not  permitted  to  divorce  itself 
from   the   ultimate   purpose    of   delivering   mankind   from 
sorrow  and  sin. 


1  The  historical  origin  of  the  Amida  Paradise  is  obscure.  Wassilief  thinks  it  borrowed 
from  foreigners  in  Southern  India.  Eitel,  finding  no  trace  of  it  in  the  "Pilgrims,  '  refers  it  to 
Kashmir,  where  it  first  appears  (Lectures,  &c.)  Eitel  traces  Gnostic  and  Parsee  elements  in 
the  belief,  and  Wurm,  Manichjean.  Beal  hints  that  it  came  from  Alexandria  to  India  in  early 
times,  and  that  its  origin  may  have  been  Christian  (R.  A.  S.  1866).  But  its  morality  and 
faith  in  the  future  world  are  both  as  fully  Buddhist  as  Christian.  Its  notion  of  Paradise  is 
Oriental.  The  doctrine  itself  came  to  China,  not  with  Bodhidhima  in  the  sixth  century,  but  as 
early  as  the  first  or  second. 


824  BELIEFS. 

III.  The   combination  of  idealism  with  practical  sense,1 
Concilia-     of  reason   with  sentiment,  of  "  clear  ideas  "   with 
idealism      Pure  etnlcs  an<^  practical  humanity,  which  forms  its 
with  sense,  theory  of  culture ;  and  which  has  made  the  most 
concrete  and  positive  of  all  known  types  of  national  mind 
the  chief  heir  of  its  metaphysics  and  its  brotherhood. 

IV.  Its   reconciliation    of   moral   determinism    (karma) 
of  freedom  with  practical  freedom  ;  as  believing  that  every  life- 
with  fate,     organism  contains  the  results  of  the  whole  past  of 
conduct,  and  that  the  very  length  of  personal  life  is  pre-de- 
termined  at  birth  ;  yet  equalizing  all  men  in  the  possibility 
of  self-release  ;  repudiating  all  vain  backward-looking  bur- 
dens of  regret  that  interfere  with  moral  effort  in  the  present 
moment ;  making  its  retributory  heavens  and  hells  such  a 
restless  wheel  of  change  that  eternal  punishment  is  impos- 
sible ; 2  while  Nirvana  (or  its  later  equivalents)  rounds  all 
destinies,  open  for  ever  to  all  ;  accepting  better  conduct  as 
the  true  atonement,  and  knowing  no  other  forgiveness  than 
that  accumulation  of  counteracting  thoughts  and  desires 
which  constitutes  habit,  and  so  supplants  the  conditions 
of  evil. 

V.  Its  democratic  philosophy  of  human  nature  as  respects 
Democratic  inherited  vice  and  the  possibility  of  deliverance  ; 
human       setting  aside  distinctions  of  sex  as  well  as  caste, 
nature.       opening  its  monastic  institutions  to  women,  its  free 
cloister  rebuking  the  closed  secular  doors  of  Christendom.3 

VI.  Its  peculiar  fitness  for  the  mass  of  men,  as  dealing 
Fitness  for  directly  wi*h  the  facts  of  evil  and  the  darker  side 
the  gen-      of  human  destiny  without  effort  to  evade  or  ignore 

them,  and  as  supplying  paths  and  motives  for  social 
improvement  by  which  barbarous  tribes  have  been  con- 
verted to  order  and  harmony,  and  their  savage  gods  sup- 
planted by  ideals  of  gentleness,  pity,  and  righteous  law. 

1  See  especially  the  Dhammapadam  ;    The  Modern  Buddhist ;  and  the  Tsing-tu-ujen. 

2  See  Catena,  pp.  65,  113. 

8  See  Les  Religieuses  Bouddhistes,  by  Mary  Summers.     Paris,  1873. 


CHINESE   BUDDHISM.  825 

VII.  Its  poetic  capabilities,  not  only  in  a  cosmical  but 
in  a  spiritual  point  of  view.  This  trait,  by  many  poeticca- 
wholly  refused  to  Buddhism,  is  the  more  remark-  Pabilities- 
able  proof  of  aesthetic  vitality  in  human  nature,  as  showing 
its  power  to  produce  an  inconceivable  mass  of  mythologic 
imagery  in  a  religion  which  denounces  the  senses  and  pro- 
claims war  on  the  finite  world.  The  popular  dream  of  Ami- 
tabha's  heaven  is  wreathed  with  flowers  and  gorgeous  with 
the  symbolism  of  colors  and  forms.  Earthly  men  and 
women  behold  in  vision  their  souls  growing  as  flowers 
there,  flourishing  or  fading  as  their  virtue  here  waxes  or 
wanes  ;  and  the  parterres  of  paradise  are  but  reflections  of 
the  human  loveliness  which  the  outward  eye  cannot  see  ; 
types  of  the  law  that  "  the  soul  of  one  advancing  in  virtue 
may  be  already  in  heaven,  though  the  body  still  dwells  in 
this  travailing  world."  *  Day  and  night  are  marked  in 
heaven  by  the  opening  and  closing  of  these  spirit  flowers, 
and  blossoms  spring  in  a  mother's  hands  when  a  saint  is 
born.2  Amitabha  creates  the  world-spaces  out  of  lotus 
pith.3  The  future  life  has  its  Judgment-Record,  its  Scales 
of  Character,  and  its  Mirror,  whose  face  neither  flatters  nor 
distorts.4  The  poetry  of  dualism  is  represented  in  wars  of 
good  and  evil  spirits  on  a  colossal  scale,  and  its  angelology 
in  guardian  genii  of  nations  and  men.6  In  every  one  grows 
a  tree  of  good  and  a  tree  of  evil,  whose  myriads  of  leaves 
are  so  many  propensities ;  by  nourishing  the  one,  the  roots 
of  the  other  fall  away.6 

The  jatdkas,  or  legends  of  Buddha's  lives,  and  the  tradi- 
tions of   missionary  adventure   and    struggle,  are  Thejata- 
equally  full  of  poetic  inventions  ;  such  as  that  of  kas> and 
the  Bodhisattva,  who  flew  to  Himalyan  heights  on  tionofthe 
the  wings  of  an  eagle  to  convert  the  Naga  tribes ;  faith> 
and  that  of  another  who  sought  also  the  world  of  snows, 

1  Schott,  Buddh.  in  Hock  Asien.  2  Beal,  p.  78.  3  Bastian,  p.  580. 

4  Ibid.,  pp.  568,  695.  8  Ibid.,  p.  590.  «  Ibid.,  p.  564. 


826  BELIEFS. 

and  when  his  head,  wearied  out  at  last,  falls  asunder  into 
twelve  parts,  reappears  in  each  as  a  fresh  life,  overspread 
with  the  light  of  Buddha's  countenance.1  When  the  nagas 
of  Kashmir  oppose  the  preaching  of  the  faith,  their  arrows 
and  rocks  hurled  against  the  saints  are  turned  to  flowers.2 
The  Bowl  of  Buddha  eternally  accompanies  the  faith,  and 
reflects  the  fortunes  of  the  law  in  its  wanderings,  fadings, 
and  renewals  ;  mystically  moving  from  heaven  to  earth, 
and  from  earth  to  heaven  ;  yearned  for  by  saints  and  adored 
by  worlds ;  multiplying  the  mite  of  the  poor  till  it  over- 
flows the  brim,  and  for  ever  absorbing  costly  tributes 
from  the  rich  without  being  filled,3  —  the  true  Holy  Grail 
of  the  Orient. 

With  these  high  values  we  must  contrast  the  actual  con- 
Actual  dition  of  Buddhism  as  a  Church.  We  find  an  inert 
condition  and  formulated  faith,  crystallized  into  ecclesiasti- 
Buddhist  cism  as  in  Thibet,  or  frittered  down  into  a  popular 
church.  mythology  and  social  convenience  as  in  China. 
The  living  spirit  of  the  religion  could  not  perish  thus  ;  but, 
by  the  law  that  governs  the  life  and  death  of  special  faiths, 
The  ood  kas  ^^  *ts  °^  body  of  rites  and  traditions,  trans- 
has  become  migrated  into  national  character,  and  organized 

secularized.    •         -ir      •  i  •  •  11*  r 

itself  in  secular  virtues,  unconscious  habits  of 
thought  and  desire,  and  familiar  principles  of  common 
sense,  which  are  the  real  marrow  of  religion  and  morals. 
Mechanism  invariably  marks  the  later  stages  of  all  positive 
The  Law.  religious  organizations.  And  if  we  compare  Budd- 
of  Trans-  ^^  j.-^  an(j  forms  wjt^  tnose  of  Catholicism 

formations 

in  religions,  which  they  so  resemble,  and  the  readiness  with 
which  Buddhism  adapts  itself  to  the  social  genius  of  the 
Chinese  with  the  corresponding  conformities  of  Christi- 
anity to  practical  and  scientific  growth  in  Western  races, 
we  shall  be  convinced  of  the  law,  that  a  special  religion 

1  Bastian,  pp.  262,  263.  »  Journ.  Asiatigue,  Dec.  1865. 

8   Fahian,  in  Buddh.  Pilgrims. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  827 

can  hold  out  only  by  becoming  absorbed  on  the  one  hand 
into  the  mechanism  of  ritual,  and  on  the  other  into  the 
spirit  of  the  people  from  whose  blood  it  has  drawn  its  sus- 
tenance. Nor,  as  we  have  seen,  is  Buddhism  singular  in 
substituting  the  worship  of  Divine  persons  for  the  worship 
of  independent  principles  and  the  sanctions  of  truth.  In- 
stituted religions  inevitably  fall  through  the  same  descents 
from  the  freedom  of  eternal  ideas. 

Other  defects  of  Buddhism  are  traceable  to  its  rejection 
of  the  visible  and  finite  world;  thus  depriving  its  Defects  of 
humanity   and    rationality   of    the   very    materials   I 
which  their  growth  requires. 

I.  The  current  of  beneficence  is   mainly  turned  into  the 
line  of  almsgiving,  for  the  support  of  a  body  of  ItsPriest. 
ecclesiastics  who  are  supposed  to  earn  by  devotion  hood. 

to  the  other  world  the  right  to  be  maintained  by  the  chil- 
dren of  this  ;  and  these  ascetics  are  gathered  under  such 
institutions  as  monasticism  and  celibacy,  tending  to  dis- 
parage, depopulate,  and  ultimately  dispel  the  sansdra 
(spheres  of  the  senses)  pronounced  illusory  in  the  creed. 
Thus  in  the  name  of  humanity  may  men  suppress  what  is 
most  human.  Self-murder,  for  instance,  is  for.bidden  ;  but 
self-sacrifice,  in  its  most  extravagant  forms  of  mutilation 
and  suppression,  for  the  sake  of  others,  is  a  familiar  lesson 
of  all  Buddhist  legend. 

II.  The  current  of  rationality  sets  towards  abstractions, 
leaving  the  actual  world  to  the  irrational,  and  the  Itssuper. 
unreasoning  mass  to  ignorance  of  the  positive  laws  stitions. 
of   Nature  and  man.      The   resulting  superstitions   afford 
abundant  material  for  the  purposes  of  Christian  mission- 
aries,1 who  eagerly  pluck  these  rank  weeds  of  heathenism 
as  a  foil  to  the  perfections  of  an  exclusive  Gospel.     The 

1  See  Doolittle,  Nevius,  and  others,  of  whose  valuable  works  this  animus  is  the  only  im- 
portant defect. 


828  BELIEFS. 

Sacred  Edict  of  Yung-ching,  however,  shows  how  Confu- 
cianism itself  looks  upon  idle  miracle -stories  and  the 
neglect  of  social  duties. 

Buddhist  superstitions  are  not  only  free  from  impurity, 
similar  to  and  outgrowths  of  kindly  sentiment,  but  represent 
other  °£  great  common  types  of  belief,  whose  universality 
religions,  among  the  ignorant  classes  of  different  races  forms 
one  of  the  most  interesting  facts  of  ethnological  study. 
They  are  such  forms  of  magic,  astrology,  divination  by 
times  and  places,  exorcism,  thought-reading,  spirit  mani- 
festation, and  occult  elemental  powers  as  constitute  the 
folk-lore  of  the  world  under  different  names,  and  with 
local  variations ; 1  and  remind  us  quite  as  forcibly,  in  these 
lower  grades  of  culture,  of  the  unity  of  human  nature,  as 
do  the  noble  sentences  and  deeds  that  crown  all  great  civ- 
ilizations and  religions  alike.  The  single  peculiarity  of 
Buddhism  in  this  sphere  is  its  extraordinary  readiness  to 
Effects  of  assimilate  all  popular  beliefs,  giving  them  a  com- 
themag-  mon  bearing  on  its  own  grand  objects  of  institut- 
plthVof"1"  *n&  an  ethical  centre  for  all  thought,  and  providing 
Buddhism,  release  from  the  sorrows  of  existence.  This  mag- 
netic sympathy  is  especially  noticeable  in  China,  where  it 
complements  the  utilitarian  habit  of  the  people  with  an 
ideal  world  of  transmigration  and  release,  and  their  demo- 
cratic secularism  with  the  preaching  of  morality  and  spir- 
itual law.  In  full  harmony  with  Chinese  eclecticism  it  has 
absorbed  all  popular  instincts  and  tendencies,  and  shaped 
its  invisible  world,  as  far  as  possible,  out  of  materials  fur- 
nished by  the  customs  of  social  life.  Its  Judgment  Day  is 
an  assize  in  perpetual  session,  on  the  model  of  the  manda- 
rin's yamun,  both  as  to  forms  and  penalties  ;  but  the  gro- 
tesque and  horrible  pictures  of  these  spirit  courts,  circulated 

1  See  especially  an  interesting  series  of  papers  on  the  Folk-lore  of  China,  in  the  China 
Review.  Also  compare  Croyances  popul.  au  Moyen  Age,  par  G.  Jacob  (Paris,  1859); 
A.  Maury's  Works;  Merrick's  Mohammed ;  Chapter  on  Fung-shui  in  present  volume. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  82Q 

among  the  people  in  the  name  of  Buddhism,  bear  as  little 
trace  of  the  essential  gentleness  and  pity  of  that  The 
religion,  as  analogous  constructions  in  the  cur-  Buddhist 
rent  belief  of  Christendom,  or  Dante's  mediaeval  Infern0' 
hells,  —  of  which  these  Chinese  horrors  are  a  kind  of  prose 
realism,  —  can  exhibit  of  the  Beatitudes  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, or  the  noble  ethics  of  the  Old.  But  even  this  Budd- 
hist Inferno  remains  true  to  the  spirit  of  Chinese  practical 
morality  in  the  directness  of  its  relations  to  actual  con- 
duct. "  National  shortcomings  are  spotted  with  grim,  un- 
erring precision.  Spiritual  penalties  are  directed  against 
chicaneries  not  punished  by  temporal  law  ;  against  unjust 
weights  and  measures,  traffic  in  bad  silk,  starched  cloths, 
vile  nostrums  of  pharmacy,  neglect  of  sanitary  duties,  and 
even  such  improprieties  as  lighting  the  pipe  with  written 
paper." J  It  is  plain  that  Buddhism,  in  its  coarsest  and 
harshest  aspect,  does  not  forget  the  function  of  preacher 
and  guardian  in  behalf  of  social  order  and  propriety. 

The  well-known  analogies  of  Buddhism  with  Christian- 
ity are  not  accidental ;  nor  are  they  results  of  his-  The  anal. 
torical  derivation.  They  extend  much  further  than  °sies  of 

11  i  i  T  vi  Buddhist 

is   generally   supposed,   as    would    readily   appear  riteswith 
from  a  comparative  view  of  the  history  and  issues   Christian 
of  the  two  religions.     These   moulds  of  religious  through 
structure,  whether  doctrinal,  ecclesiastical,  ritual,  or  denvatlon- 
popular,  form  portions  of  the  great  mythologic  organism 
which  belongs  in  common  to  all  positive  religions  before 
these  are  transformed  by  science.     They  are  the  supernat- 
uralist  expression  of  desires  and  needs  that  have  not  yet 
found  their  natural  paths  and  objects.     There  can  be  noth- 
ing  more   self-contradictory    or   irrational   than    that   the 
advocate  of  Christianity  as  divine,  against  heathenism  as 
human  and  profane,  should  collect  in  that  interest  a  list 

1  Rev.  T.  J.  Selby,  in  China  Review,  March  and  April,  1873. 


830  BELIEFS. 

of  crude  or  semi-barbarous  Buddhist  habits,  every  one  of 
which,  down  to  that  disparagement  of  the  finite  world 
from  which  so  many  of  them  proceed,  has  its  analogues  all 
through  the  history  of  Christendom,  and  would  still  per- 
vade it  but  for  the  constant  struggle  of  a  purely  secular 
science  to  set  aside  the  ignorance  and  contempt  of  Nature 
on  which  they  rest.  They  are  to  be  abolished  in  all  re- 
ligions alike,  by  the  conviction  of  invariable  law  and  qosmi- 
cal  unity,  and  by  devotion  to  the  uses  of  life  and  the  world. 
Function  The  dignity  of  science  is  in  bringing  a  culture  to 
if  science  man's  powers  and  a  peace  to  his  heart  which  no 

in  recon-  x 

man  belief  in  personal  government,  whether  of  a  Christ 


or  a  Buddha,  can  effect  ;    and  whose   solution   of 


of  life.  the  darker  problems  of  life  rests  on  an  assurance 
deeper  than  trust  in  anthropomorphic  Deity  can  afford, 
of  the  inherence  of  human  destinies  in  the  unity  and  har- 
mony of  universal  law. 

Though  no  positive  religion  makes  provision  for  its  own 
prophetic  correction  by  science,  being  in  its  own  esteem 
germs  of  infinitely  above  and  beyond  science,  yet  there  is 

it;   their  j 

grounds  in  none  which  does  not  contain  abundant  presenti- 
human  ments  of  scientific  truths  and  uses  ;  simply  because 

nature.  .  ... 

each  is  a  complex  of  aspirations  and  needs  seeking 
their  satisfaction,  however  unconsciously,  at  the  breast  of 
Nature.  'Tis  this  milk  by  which  they  are  fed,  and  by 
none  other.  Must  they  not  learn  something  of  its  true 
quality  from  the  beginning?  The  especial  impulse  of 
Buddhism  to  go  behind  personal  Providence  to  inherent 
rule  and  tendency,  renders  its  speculations  very  rich  in 
foregleams  of  the  science  that  reconciles  man  with  the 
conditions  of  his  own  being. 

It  conceives  the  universe  as  under  an  all-pervading  Law 
Such  fore-  (karmd).  Its  innumerable  worlds  are  the  product 
Buddhilt  °*  evolution>  without  beginning  or  end  ;  their  cy- 
mythoi-  clic  processes  of  growth  and  decay  move  not  by 

creative  interference,  but  by  inherent  law;   their 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  83! 

reproduction  begins  in  a  mist-mass  (nebula),  filling  a  void, 
of  immense  duration,  analogous  to  pure  space,  whose  rain 
accumulates  first  into  seas  (star-dust)  and  then  into  bub- 
bles,— whence  the  worlds.  The  celestial  spaces  are  meas- 
ured by  successive  heavens  that  widen  in  arithmetical 
ratio,  and  correspond  in  distance  from  the  earth  with  the 
times  of  bodies  falling  through  thousands  of  years  by  one 
law  of  motion  (planetary  movement).  Sun,  moon,  and 
stars  are  dowered  with  living  growths  arid  relations. 
These  are  marked  by  kalpas  of  time  and  by  tiers  of 
worlds,  piled  in  layers  (geology)  through  an  illimitable 
ocean  (continental  function).  The  imagination  is  over- 
powered by  an  astronomy  which  counts  worlds  by  "  the 
number  of  grains  in  the  dust  of  millions  of  Merus,"  and  by 
the  more  than  microscopic  vision  of  the  infinitely  minute  ; 
hinted  in  Buddha's  saying  that  water  cannot  be  strained 
free  from  innumerable  living  forms,  which  not  the  mortal 
eye,  but  only  the  illumined  mind,  can  see.1 

Finally,  that  conception  of   an    Inscrutable    Substance 
whose  manifestation  includes  all  forces  and  effects  The  in- 
that  belong  to   Intelligence,  while  itself  infinitely  sc^ab!e 
transcending  these,  —  in  which  we  now  discern  the  stance, 
crown   of  science,  —  has  its  prefiguration  in  such  passages 
from  the  Sutras  as  this  summary  by  a  Chinese  writer:  — 

'*  As  there  is  no  limit  to  the  immensity  of  reason,  and  no  measure 
to  the  universe  ;  as  the  forms  of  life  cannot  be  numbered,  nor  the  mod- 
ifications of  the  Karma  estimated, —  so  all  the  Buddhas  are  possessed  of 
infinite  wisdom  and  infinite  mercy.  There  is  no  place  in  the  universe 
where  the  essential  body  is  not  present  and  perpetually  manifest.  It 
maybe  asked,  From  what  cause  did  these  worlds  innumerable  spring  ? 
We  reply,  From  Soul  (atma)  alone.  From  this,  the  universal  essence, 
comes  all  that  exists."2 

1  Beal's  translation  of  Jiu-ckau. 

-  Catena,  pp.  123  -  125.  The  shape  of  the  Sanchi  topes  represents  a  series  of  cosmogonic 
symbols:  the  elements  in  succession  ;  earth  as  base  ;  water  as  glebe  resting  on  it ;  fire  as  a 
triangle  surmounting  the  globe  ;  wind  as  a  crescent  above  this  ;  and,  fir  ally,  ether  as  culmi- 
nating flame. 


832  BELIEFS. 

Alabaster  closes  his  translation  of  that  remarkable  pro- 
duction of  a  minister  of  the  King  of  Siam,  the  "  Modern 
Buddhist,"  with  the  following  summary,  which  in  the  main 
well  describes  a  scientific  religion  :  — 

"  The  religion  of  Buddha  meddled  not  with  the  beginning  which  it 
could  not  fathom  ;  avoided  the  action  of  a  Deity  it  could  not 

oumrnary  J 

ofBudd-  perceive;  and  left  open  to  endless  discussion  that  problem 
hismby  which  it  could  not  solve,  —  the  ultimate  reward  of  the  per- 
" Modem  ^ect>  ."It  dealt  with  life  as  it  found  it;  it  declared  all  to  be 
Bud-  good  which  led  to  its  sole  object,  the  diminution  of  the 

misery  of  all  sentient  beiugs  ;  it  laid  down  rules  of  action 
which  have  never  been  surpassed,  and  held  out  reasonable  hopes  of  a 
future  of  perfect  happiness.  Its  proofs  rest  on  the  assumption  that 
the  reason  of  man  is  his  surest  guide,  and  that  the  Law  of  Nature  is 
perfect  justice.  To  the  disproof  of  these  assumptions  we  recommend 
the  attention  of  those  missionaries  who  wish  to  convert  Buddhists."  ' 

This  "  Modern  Buddhist,"  arguing  against  Christian  no- 
tions of  divine  interference  in  natural  phenomena,  and 
showing  the  folly  of  anthropomorphic  solutions,  invariably 
falls  back  on  natural  laws.  Epidemics,  for  instance,  can- 
not be  the  work  of  a  divine  volition,  because  they  can  be 
escaped  by  going  away.  "  I  leave  you  to  form  your  own 
opinion  whether  they  are  the  work  of  devils,  or  the  visita- 
tion of  God,  or  the  result  of  the  fall  of  leaves  in  heaven,  or 
of  a  Naga  king's  power,  or  of  a  bad  atmosphere."  *  The 
naYvete  of  his  argument  against  a  personal  Providence  as 
cause  of  phenomena  shows  how  contrary  that  doctrine  is 
to  Buddhist  habits  of  mind. 

For  the  relief  of  those  who  fear  that  science  is  cutting 
Assuring  °^  ^  foundations  for  faith  in  the  spiritual  ele- 
lessons  ment,  when  it  substitutes  the  realities  of  Law  for 

from  the 

history  of    the  notions  of  a  Creator  and  a  Special  Providence, 

dhitn        ~~  we  wi^  add  tnese  significant  facts  :  (i)  that  the 

very   religion,  whose  philosophy  rests  more   than 

any  other  on  this  all-sufficiency  of  Law  without  First  Cause, 

1  Wheel  of  Law,  p.  73.  »  Ibid.,  p.  9. 


CHINESE    BUDDHISM.  833 

has  throughout  its  two  thousand  years  of  changing  phases 
maintained  the  principle  of  its  Mahayana,  —  that  all  things 
spring  from  mind,  and  are  rounded  by  eternity  of  wisdom 
and  right ;  (2)  that  the  religion  which  puts  necessity  in 
place  of  volition,  and  lifts  the  inevitable  sequence  of  cause 
and  consequence  above  the  powers  alike  of  men  and  their 
gods,  has  identified  this  Fate  with  Moral  Order,  and  taught 
man  to  make  the  bitter  sense  of  illusion  his  grandest  stim- 
ulus to  the  pursuit  of  virtue,  and  the  ceaseless  pain  of 
change  and  decay  his  incitement  to  find  immortal  life  in 
the  path  of  discipline  and  love. 


53 


III. 

MISSIONARY   FAILURES   AND   FRUITS. 


MISSIONARY    FAILURES   AND    FRUITS. 


'T^HE  signal  success  of  Buddhism  in  China  leads  us  to 
-*•       consider  the  history  and  prospects  of  those   Freedom 
other  forms  of  religious  propagandism  which  have  J^g0^" 
striven  for  the  last  fifteen  centuries  to  recast  the  china, 
national  mind  in  foreign  moulds.    If  they  have  accomplished 
no  more  during  this  long  period  than  merely  to  fret  the 
edges  of  native  belief,  it  is  certainly  not  owing  to  lack  of 
opportunity  for  testing  their  fitness  to  meet  its  demands. 

In  1326,  the  Franciscan  Bishop  of  Canton,  De  Perusio, 
wrote  as  follows  :  — 

"  In  this  vast  empire  are  people  of  every  nation,  and  all  are  free  to 
live  according  to  their  belief.  For  the  Chinese  have  the  opinion,  or 
rather  error,  that  every  one  is  saved  in  his  own  sect.  We  can  preach 
safely,  but  convert  no  Jews  nor  Saracens.  Of  the  idolaters  many  are 
baptized,  though  many  walk  not  after  the  Christian  way."1 

Five  and  a  half  centuries  afterwards,  the  missionary 
Blodget  writes  from  Peking,2  concerning  the  ceremonies 
on  the  emperor's  recovery  from  dangerous  illness,  that 
neither  ruler  nor  people  would  have  objected  to  any  one, 
native  or  foreigner,  "  who  should  have  on  that  day  exposed 
the  folly  of  such  idolatry  in  the  most  public  manner,  or 
argued  for  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion."  3 

Between  these  two  epochs  of  free  proselytism  there  have 
been  intervals  of  persecution  of  a  more  or  less  religious 

1  Gieseler's  Ecdes.  Hist.,  IV.  259.  *  Dec.  30,  1874;  Miss.  Herald,  June,  1875. 

8  Similar  testimony  is  given  by  Lay,  Forbes,  Tomlin,  Marshall,  Williams,  and  others. 


838  BELIEFS. 

nature,  which  are  described  in  that  partial  and  highly 
colored  style,  infiltrated  with  miracles,  special  providences, 
and  ecclesiastical  assumptions,  which  renders  missionary 
literature  in  general,  especially  Catholic,  so  striking  a  sur- 
vival of  the  less  attractive  features  of  the  ancient  myth. 
In  view  of  three  things,  the  amount  of  martyrdom  in  these 
persecutions  is  really  insignificant :  first,  the  immense 
efforts  to  transform  China  into  a  dependency  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church ;  second,  the  systematic  attacks  constantly 
made  upon  the  religio-political  rites  and  civil  allegiance  of 
the  Chinese  ;  and  third,  the  extreme  antagonism  of  Eastern 
and  Western  civilizations,  and  the  barriers  of  language  and 
customs  to  mutual  understanding.  The  extent  to  which 
such  causes  of  collision  have  been  carried  is  proof  of  the 
remarkable  openness  of  the  Empire  to  materials  by  which 
the  jealousy  of  government  and  people  must  necessarily  be 
aroused. 

Jews,  Mussulmans,  and   Christians  of  every  sect  have 

Failure  of    availed    themselves    of    these    open    doors  ;    but 

whether    it    be   a    persistent    Hebrew   settlement 

gions  save 

Buddhism,  fixed  in  Ho-nan  from  remote  antiquity  without 
making  the  slightest  impression,  and  finally  dying  out  in 
squalid  misery  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century ; 
or  a  Nestorian  mission  of  the  earliest  Christian  centuries, 
so  completely  effaced  that  no  vestiges  of  its  influence  could 
be  found  when  the  Roman  Catholics  opened  their  religious 
campaigns  in  modern  China,  save  one  questionable  inscrip- 
tion ;  or  a  flourishing  Romish  commission,  numbering  at 
one  time  hundreds  of  thousands  of  converts,  but  steadily 
dwindling  down  to  the  present  day ;  or  a  Protestant  sec- 
tarism,  whose  positive  achievement  is  to  be  found,  not  in 
the  souls  it  has  converted,  but  in  the  scientific  methods 
and  educational  forces  which  have  accompanied  it ;  or  a 
sprinkling  of  Mohammedans  in  various  quarters,  whose 
occasional  rebellions  effect  nothing,  and  whose  religious 


MISSIONARY    FAILURES    AND    FRUITS.  839 

influence  compares  feebly  enough  with  their  former  pres- 
tige in  the  carrying  trade  of  the  empire,  —  in  each  and  all 
of  these  instances  of  religious  propagandism,  the  absorb- 
ent quality  of  the  Chinese  mind  has  been  far  more  con- 
spicuous in  dissolving  this  foreign  material  than  in  working 
it  up  into  any  visible  results. 

The  Jews  of  Kai-fung-fu  were  heard  of  by  Ricci  in 
the  seventeenth  century  as  numbering  ten  thou-  jews, 
sand,  and  others  at  Han-chou  were  believed  to  be  more 
numerous.  This  Catholic  padre  of  course  believed  them 
to  be  the  remnant  of  the  "  Ten  Tribes."  He  brought  to 
Peking  an  old  copy  of  the  Pentateuch  from  their  syna- 
gogue, then  five  or  six  centuries  old.  In  1851,  a  report  by 
two  Chinese  Christians  sent  from  London  to  investigate 
the  condition  of  these  waifs  of  Abraham  showed  about 
seven  families  gathered  around  a  ruined  temple  in  utter 
destitution,  unable  to  read  their  own  Bible  for  half  a  cen- 
tury. They  had  adopted  native  rites,  had  never  heard  of 
Christ,  and  had  lost  the  expectation  of  a  Messiah.  Their 
name  for  God  was  Te  and  Tien.  They  worshipped  the 
Tao  as  reconciling  all  faiths,  and  bowed  before  Confucius 
while  still  observing  passover,  circumcision,  and  the  sab- 
bath. Eight  manuscripts  of  Old  Testament  Scriptures 
were  brought  to  Europe,  faded  witnesses  of  the  vanity  of 
attempting  by  special  revelations  to  change  the  tendencies 
of  a  race.1 

The  Chinese  annals  mention  numerous  Arab  embassies 
for  mercantile  purposes  from  the  seventh  century  Moham. 
down  to  the  fifteenth,2  and  our  earliest  account  of  medans- 

1  Martin  (Hist,  of  China,  I.  240,  II.  447)  actually  represents  the  Jews  as  acquainted  with 
China  eighteen  centuries  before  Christ,  on  the  strength  of  a  passage  in  Genesis  which  men- 
tions "linen  or  silk;"  and  points  out  that  Confucius  had  only  seventy-two  of  his  disciples 
initiated,  "  precisely  the  number  of  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim,  the  Roman  cardinals,  and  the  dis- 
ciples of  Christ."  For  accounts  of  the  Chinese  Jews  see  also  Williams,  II.  288  ;  Chin. 
Repos.,  July,  1845  and  July,  1851  ;  Courcy,  pp.  231,  232;  Lettres  Edifiantes,  Vol.  XVIII. 

*  Bretschneider  in  Notes  and  Queries^  Nos.  7  and  8. 


840  BELIEFS. 

China  comes  from  two  Arab  travellers  in  the  ninth.  The 
efforts  of  this  race  of  enthusiasts  in  commerce  as  well  as 
in  faith  were  apparently  directed  towards  circulating  Chi- 
nese ideas  and  inventions  in  the  West 1  rather  than  towards 
converting  the  Chinese  themselves.  The  Arab  travellers 
aforesaid  state  that  no  Chinese  embraced  Islam,  nor  spoke 
Arabic.2  Yet  Ibn  Batuta,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  found 
Mohammedans  living  under  their  own  laws  throughout 
China,  a  wealthy  and  influential  body.8  Navarrete  says 
there  were  in  his  time  (seventeenth  century)  five  hundred 
thousand  Moors  in  the  Empire  ;  among  them  many  literati, 
whom  the  rest  considered  apostates.4  Many  tales  are  related 
of  the  sturdy  refusal  of  Mohammedans  to  comply  with  the 
"  idolatrous  rites  "  of  the  natives,  and  even  to  take  literary 
degrees  which  might  involve  such  compliance.5  Being 
traders,  the  Arabs  were  never  subjected  to  the  persecutions 
which  befell  Buddhist  and  Christian  propagandists.6 

Notwithstanding  these  advantages,  the  extension  of  Mo- 
hammedanism at  the  present  day  is  far  below  that  ascribed 
to  it  by  these  early  travellers.  Its  main  strength  has  lain 
in  the  outlying  western  province  of  Hi.  Its  mosques  are 
sprinkled  about  the  great  cities,  and  it  has  force  enough  to 
embroil  whole  provinces  in  insurrection.  Yet  supposing  it 
to  count  half  a  million  of  followers,7  it  is  but  a  drop  in  the 
ocean  of  the  Chinese  people.  It  is  moreover  partially  Con- 
fucian. Some  mosques  have  imperial  tablets,  and  many  of 
its  members  pass  literary  examinations.8 

But  the  intense  religious  energy  of  this  faith  does  not  fail 
it  even  in  the  cold  atmosphere  of  Chinese  rationalism.  Its 
rival  sects  —  white  caps  and  red,  traditionalists  and  radicals 
—  dispute  on  the  old  European  themes  with  entire  freedom.9 

1  See  Draper,  Intell.  Devel.  of  Europe.  *  P.  37  (Renaudot's  transl.). 

«  Travels,  Ch.  XXIII.  <  Append,  to  Arab.  Travellers. 

6  Ibid.,  pp.  181,  182  ;    Bretschr.  as  above.  «  Chin.  Rev.,  Nov.  and  Dec.  1872. 

7  Williams.  8  ibid.,  II.  285,  286. 
0  Chin.  Rev.,  1872. 


MISSIONARY    FAILURES    AND    FRUITS.  84! 

Mohammedan  literature  in  China  discusses  the  Divine  nat- 
ure and  attributes,  necessity  and  freedom,  the  origin  of 
the  world,  the  fate  of  the  soul  after  death,  the  problem 
of  evil,  with  a  zeal  that  shows  the  Chinese  brain  to  be  far 
from  inaccessible  by  the  mysteries  of  being.  Arabic  works 
are  common  in  Peking  which  strongly  assail  "  idolatry."1 

Each  variety  of  Christianity  has  tried  its  hand  at  the 
conversion  of  China ;  first  the  heretical,  then  the    - 

Christians. 

Papal,  and  finally  the  sectarian  Protestant. 

I.  The    tablet  discovered  by  a  Catholic  missionary  in 
1625  at  Sin-gan-fu,  dated  A.  D.  781,  and  referred  to  L  Nesto_ 
the  Nestorian  Church  of  Syria,  declares  that  Olopen  rians 
(a  priest  presumably  of  that  school)  established  a  church  in 
Shen-si  with  the  approval  and   support   of  Tai-tsung  and 
his  successors,  who  even  provided  for  the  conversion  of  the 
whole  empire  to  Christ.2     It  is  upon  this  inscription,  and 
a  few  unwarranted  inferences  from  blind  traditions  con- 
cerning the  ubiquitous  apostle  Thomas,  that  such  sweep- 
ing claims   have   been   constructed   as    the   statement   of 
Martin,3  that  "  the  inculcation  of  the  divine  precepts  of  our 
Redeemer,  shortly  after  their  adoption  in  the  West   (sic), 
has   probably  been   the   means   of  preserving  China  from 
barbarism  "  (!)     If,  however,  the  inscription  itself  is  to  be 
trusted,  we  may  well  wonder  that  no  trace  of  this  immense 
victory  over  heathen  ideas  was  to  be  found  seven  hundred 
years  later,  when  the  Jesuit  Fathers  had  to  begin  the  whole 
work  afresh.  The  Sin-gan-fu  tablet  is  doubtless  very  The  Sin. 
old  ;  and,  as  Julien,  Hue,  and  others  have  shown,  gan-fu 
its  record  that  missionaries  from  Ta-thsin  (probably   t 
Persia)  propagated  a  form  of  Christianity  in  the  seventh 
century  is  verified   by  Chinese  testimony;  but   its  details 

1  Salisbury  (Am.  Or.  Soc.  1863)  gives  extracts  to  this  effect  from  missionary  letters. 

2  See  the  translation  in  Williams  (II.  291);  also  Chitiese  Rejos.,  September,  1844;  Whit- 
ney, Orient.  Studies,  2d  ser.  p.  101  ;  Layard's  Nineveh,  I.  206. 

»  China,  I.  245. 


842  BELIEFS. 

are  extravagant,  and  stand  without  any  certain  support  in 
the  native  literature.  It  is  even  doubtful  what  its  real 
statements  are.  The  three  versions  —  French,  Latin,  and 
English  —  will  be  found  to  differ  materially  ;  and  Dr. 
Bridgman  confesses  that  if  a  hundred  Chinese  should 
translate  it,  each  would  vary  from  the  rest.  So  alien  to  the 
Chinese  thought  and  tongue  are  the  dogmas  described, 
that  one  hardly  sees  how  the  fact  could  be  otherwise. 

Mafiy  circumstances  combine  to  render  this  monument 
of  little  practical  value.  It  is  improbable  that  Tai-tsung 
should  have  caused  the  Christian  Scriptures  to  be  trans- 
lated and  circulated.  Nobody  knows  who  Olopen  was ;  nor 
can  he  be  identified,  though  the  record  calls  him  a  "  high 
priest."  There  is  no  likelihood  that  "  five  kings,"  with  long 
trains  of  priests,  were  appointed  to  rebuild  Nestorian 
temples.  The  priest  Isaac,  proselyting  at  the  court  and 
enrolled  in  the  royal  pavilion,  must,  if  a  real  personage, 
have  made  some  record  in  Chinese  history,  and  been  in 
some  way  reported  in  the  Western  world  ;  yet  he  is  not 
to  be  found  in  either. 

That  Edessan  Nestorians  fled  from  persecution  into 
Persia  in  the  fifth  century,  and  thence  diffused  themselves 
through  regions  more  easterly  still,  conveying  a  knowledge 
of  Greek  letters,  is  admitted.1  It  is  on  record  that  they 
converted  a  Tartar  prince  in  the  eleventh  century.  Nesto- 
rian settlements  in  China  from  the  seventh  to  the  thir- 
teenth centuries  are  not  denied.2  The  mysterious  Prester 
John,  whose  locality  is  still  as  hazy  as  the  tradition  of  his 
fabulous  wealth  and  power,  is  generally  accredited  to  this 
sect  as  a  convert.  But  the  argument  for  Nestorian  influ- 
ence on  Chinese  theism,  especially  in  early  times,  is  of  the 
most  attenuated  character.  And  the  famous  inscription  is 
still  a  problem  of  historical  study,  not  without  its  suggestion 

1  Gieseler,   I.  403,  404  ;  Cosmas  Indicopleustes  ;  Hase,  Hist.  Christian  Church,  p.    108  : 
Bible  Repos.,  1841. 

2  Hue's  Christ,  in  China,  I.  68-72. 


MISSIONARY   FAILURES   AND    FRUITS.  843 

of  deception  for  religious  ends.  So  far  as  it  is  of  any  value, 
it  goes  to  prove  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  Chinese  towards 
foreign  proselyters  many  centuries  ago. 

The  Mongols,  who  favored  free  discussion,  being  expelled 
by  the  native  Ming  dynasty,  a  new  policy  succeeded  ;  com- 
munications with  Tartary  were  cut  off,  and  Christianity 
disappeared,  apparently  by  absorption  in  Buddhism,  or  by 
natural  decay.  The  last  appearance  of  Nestorianism  is 
connected  with  the  arrival  of  Orthodox  Christians,  and  a 
consequent  strife  in  which  both  went  down.  The  Catholic 
Hue  describes  this  heretical  sect  in  China  as  immoral  and 
ignorant,  and  as  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  efforts  of  devoted 
and  long-suffering  Franciscans,  like  Corvino,  Oderic,  and 
others,  to  Christianize  the  empire.1 

II.  The  seventeenth  century   opens   with    a   wonderful 
chapter  of  Christian  propagandism.     The  efforts  of  n  Roman 
the  Roman  Church  could  not  have  been  more  ably  catholic 
inaugurated   than  by  Ricci  and   his  fellow  Jesuits, 


Ricci  avoided  the  superstitions  of  the  Church,  and  Dominican. 
interested  the  Chinese  by  his  scientific  and  moral  labors. 
Aleni  wrote  twenty-five  works  on  the  creed,  and  Schaal  com- 
piled the  miracles  of  the  Church.  Lecomte2  (1698)  says 
the  Jesuit  Fathers  in  his  day  had  translated  catechisms, 
gospel-expositions,  moral  treatises,  practical  rules  of  piety 
for  all  classes,  ritual  prayers,  bodies  of  divinity,  and  even 
thought  of  putting  the  Missal  into  the  vernacular.  He 
describes  the  Chinese  as  strongly  interested  in  the  sacra- 
ments, in  images,  relics,  and  especially  in  the  Virgin,  "  to 
whom  all  their  churches  were  dedicated  ;  "  doubtless  con- 
founding her  with  Kwan-yin.  The  Manchu  princes  per- 
ceived the  worth  of  these  prudent  missionaries,  who 
adapted  themselves  to  the  national  institutions  and  beliefs, 

1  Hue,  I.  257,  293,332,316. 

2  This  quaint  old  missionary  wrote  a  remarkably  correct  account  of  China,  much  of  which 
is  confirmed  by  later  researches. 


844  BELIEFS. 

and  treated  them  with  great  honor.  Verbiest,  set  to  mak- 
ing cannon,  was  also  raised,  like  Ricci  and  Schaal,  to  high 
office.  Grimaldi  was  sent  on  a  mission  to  Russia.  Ger- 
billon  and  Pereira  were  employed  in  Tartary.  The  Jesuits 
were  entrusted  with  supreme  direction  of  mathematical 
studies ;  their  services  were  recorded  in  the  annals,  and 
honors  paid  to  their  memory.  Their  success  among  the 
potentates  of  the  empire,  especially  Ricci's,  was,  according 
to  Catholic  writers,  prodigious.1  With  the  people  they 
passed  for  deities,  like  Paul  and  Silas  of  old.  Lecomte 
says  that  crowds  waited  for  him  on  the  highway  with 
fruits  spread  on  tables,  and  that  he  was  "  greatly  moved 
by  the  innocence  of  their  faith."  The  story  of  their 
achievements,  as  recorded  by  Hue,  Medhurst,  Lecomte, 
Duhalde,  and  others,  abounds  in  fascinating  episodes. 
Such  is  the  story  of  Father  Schaal's  relations  with  the 
young  Emperor  Chun-chi  ;  who,  while  appreciating  Chris- 
tianity, steadily  refused  to  become  a  Christian  to  the  last 
moment  of  his  life,  though  taking  a  tender  farewell  of  the 
friendly  priest  whose  person  he  loved  better  than  his 
creed.2  The  reaction  that  followed  his  death,  stimulated 
by  the  attacks  of  the  missionaries  on  the  national  rites  and 
their  parade  of  organized  converts  as  an  "  imperium  in 
imperio,"  was  natural  enough.3  But  though  Schaal  was 
proscribed,  and  his  companions  banished,  this  did  not  pre- 
vent the  Catholics  from  a  more  brilliant  campaign  under 
Kang-hi,  who  issued  an  edict  of  toleration,  and  even 
gratified  them  by  declaring  himself  a  pure  theist.  Dis- 
gusted at  last  by  the  quarrels  of  Jesuits  and  Dominicans 
over  the  question  of  tolerating  the  immemorial  rites  of 
China,  by  the  assumptions  of  the  Pope,  and  by  the  appar- 
ent intention  of  these  foreigners  to  govern  his  people  in 

1  Hue,  II.  251,  252  ;  Marshall's  (Catholic)  History  of  Missions. 

Pere  d' Orleans,  Hist,  of  the  Tartar  Conquerors  of  China,  pp.  44,  45. 
3  It  was  also  owing  in  part  to  disputes  between  the  Christians  and  Mohammedans. 


MISSIONARY    FAILURES    AND    FRUITS.  845 

his  stead,  Kang-hi  turned  against  them  in  the  height  of 
their  success.  Their  sudden  and  complete  suppression  by 
his  successors  upon  similar  grounds  (1724-1747)  shows 
how  little  real  impression  Christianity  had  made,  apart  from 
imperial  favor.1  The  edict  was  directed  against  "  magic," 
indicating  the  idea  held  by  native  rationalism,  then  as  now, 
concerning  the  pretensions  of  this  faith  to  miraculous  basis 
and  powers. 

Since  this  expulsion,  the  constant  efforts  of  the  Catholic 
Church  have  been  more  successful  in  martyrdoms  than  in 
conversions.  The  Order  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  succeeded 
the  Jesuits  in  the  Chinese  mission.2  Raux  was  put  on  the 
Board  of  Mathematics,  and  Hue  and  Gabet  explored  the 
empire.  The  French  secured  safety  to  their  missionaries  in 
China  by  the  treaty  of  Whampoa  in  1844,  and  the  full  right 
of  preaching  in  the  ports  two  years  afterward  ;  and  in  1861, 
under  stress  of  French  and  English  cannon,  Prince  Kung 
agreed  to  erase  from  the  Code  all  penal  or  degrading  statutes 
against  Christianity.3 

It  is  not  easy  to  overstate  the  pious  ardor  of  these  Jesuit 
priests  who  penetrated  China,  disguised  as  natives,  practicai 
toiling  to  educate  the  people  in  Christian  civiliza-  andliter- 
tion.4     Their  dogmas  were  offered  in  the  most  en-  the  jes-° 
gaging  form   possible,  notwithstanding  the  efforts   uits> 
of  the  Papacy  and  the  Dominicans  to  combine  more  aggres- 
sive and  exacting  feature's.     Their  extraordinary  following 
was  obviously  due  to  personal  magnetism,  since  there  is  no 
evidence  of  any  new  moral  or  spiritual  principle  in  their 
fresh  floods  of  fetichism,  beyond  their  own  self-sacrificing 
zeal.     But  these  modest  and  cheerful  personal  relations  were 

1  Williams,    II.    308-312.      De   Mas,   II.  299,     300.     The  Emperor's  logic  was  simple. 
"  You  wish  to  convert  all  my  subjects,  do  you  not  ?"     "  Yes,  your  Majesty."     "  And  then,  if 
you  succeed,  will  they  obey  me,  or  you  ? "     (De  Mas,  p.  303.) 

2  Brine,  pp.  48,  51.  3  Medhurst,  Foreigner  in  Far  Cathay,  p.  37. 

*  Magaillans  (New  Hist,  of  China,  1688),  Wylie's  Catalogue,  144,  and  Chinese  Reposi- 
tory, Dec.,  1841,  enumerate  the  translations  made  by  these  Fathers  into  Chinese,  and  the  works 
produced  by  the  discussion  of  them. 


846  BELIEFS. 

so  effective,  that  even  recent  toleration  by  statute  as  a  treaty 
right  is  held  to  endanger  their  success,  by  making  the  teach- 
ers conspicuous  in  a  control  over  converts  that  will  embroil 
them  with  the  State.  The  Jesuit  records  reveal  a  training 
of  the  young,  combining  Chinese  classics  and  Western 
science  with  doctrinal  teaching,  which  prepared  the  pupil 
of  Christianity  to  play  a  part  in  the  life  of  his  own  people, 
and  obtain  political  ascendancy.1  The  glory  of  martyrdom 
Their  mar-  nas  not  been  wanting.  Pere  Avril  (1693)  says 
tyr  spirit,  that  five-sixths  of  the  Jesuits  who  took  sail  for 
China  were  lost  on  the  way  ;  nor  has  the  Roman  Church 
a  more  honorable  chapter  of  heroic  toils  and  sufferings 
than  the  history  of  this  apostolate  in  China.  Of  the 
scientific  and  literary  talents  of  Ricci,  Schaal,  and  Ver- 
Their  biest ;  of  Amyot,  Gaubil,  Visdelou,  De  Mailla, 
"mem-  Grosier,  and  the  rest,  to  whom  we  owe  the  most 
complete  account  of  Chinese  civilization  known 
to  the  Western  world  before  the  middle  of  the  present 
century,  —  we  cannot  here  speak  in  detail.  Upon  the  whole, 
after  eliminating  much  credulity  and  some  superstition,  the 
"  Memoires  concernant  les  Chinois  "  must  be  regarded  as  a 
wonderful  monument  of  modesty,  sincerity,  and  scientific 
labor,  and  of  incalculable  value  for  all  time.2 

What  has  all  this  devotion  accomplished  towards  the 
end  specially  proposed  ?  Of  the  four  hundred 
millions  of  Chinese,  less  than  a  million  have  been 
converted  on  the  highest  estimate,  which  is  the  evidently 
extravagant  one  of  Hue.  Meadows,  a  far  more  trust- 
worthy authority,  lessens  the  number  by  half.3  Brine, 
Nevius,  and  the  reports  of  1848  give  three  hundred 
thousand,  which  is  probably  nearest  the  truth.  Hiibner 
claims  a  great  increase  since  i86o.4  But  these  conver- 

1  Brine,  p.  54. 

2  See  also  De  Mailla's  Hist,  of  China,  from  the  National  Annals,  in  twelve  vols.  1777  — 
1783- 

3  Chinese  and  their  Rebellions,  p.  52.  «  Ramble,  &*c.,  p.  630. 


MISSIONARY    FAILURES    AND    FRUITS.  847 

sions  have  neither  touched  the  intelligent  classes,  nor 
acquired  moral  prestige  enough  to  protect  the  missions 
from  superstitious  panics  among  the  masses.  The  con- 
verts are  of  the  lowest  class,  mainly  women,  children, 
and  men  worn  out  by  age  ;  all  utterly  ignorant,  of  course, 
of  the  meaning  of  the  Latin  service.1  The  statistics  of 
conversion  have  been  somewhat  curiously  made  up.  Sick 
infants  are  baptized,  by  inducing  the  parents  to  have  them 
washed  in  water  from  the  priest's  bottle  as  a  means  of  re- 
covery ;  by  which  pious  fraud  the  souls  of  fifty  thousand 
children  a  year  have  been  secured2  as  spoils  from  these 
doomed  Egyptians. 

To  the  natives  who  believed  themselves  afflicted  by 
demons,  the  earlier  missionaries  used  to  give  pictures  of 
Christ,  to  which  fetichistic  effects  were  ascribed.  The 
prayers  of  the  convert,  turning  flames  from  his  house 
upon  those  of  his  relapsed  neighbors,  were  "  improved " 
as  examples  of  divine  vengeance,  in  the  interest  of  the 
Christian  God.3  Miracles  were  cheap.  Those  of  Faber 
especially  spread  amazement  through  the  empire,  and  con- 
verted hosts  of  these  sheep  without  a  shepherd.4  Hostile 
rulers  and  mandarins  died  suddenly,  struck  by  lightning.5 
Earthquakes  stopped  the  reading  of  the  decree  for  cruelly 
executing  Father  Schaal,  till  the  judgment  was  reversed.6 
Absurd  imitations  of  European  sermonizing  were  ascribed 
to  converts  in  proof  of  their  piety  under  persecution.7  Such 
hollow  sensationalism,  not  confined  to  Catholics,  may  help 
account  for  droves  of  converts,  as  well  as  reveal  the  value 
of  their  conversion  ;  but  it  brought  its  speedy  reaction  in 
past  times,  and  will  certainly  do  so  in  the  present. 

Priestly  interference  with  native  marriages  in  the  name 
of  religion  is  another  ground  of  dislike.  Still  worse  is  the 
confessional,  bringing  the  Chinese  woman  into  closer  rela- 

1  Brine,  p.  55.  *  Williams,  II.  319.  3  Lecomte,  pp.  415,  416. 

4  Ibid.,  414,  358.  5  Hue  and  Marshall,  passim.        6   Lecomte,  p.  362. 

7  See  instances  in  Marshall,  Vol.  I.  121-141. 


848  BELIEFS. 

tions  with  the  priest  than  with  her  own  husband.  Even 
a  greater  drawback  than  this  is  the  national  dread  of  po- 
litical innovations  supposed  to  be  impending  through  the 
foreign  bell  and  book.  So  wide-spread  a  hostility  to  the 
missionaries  as  has  recently  been  evinced  could  not  have 
resulted  from  all  these  causes,  were  not  their  religious  faith 
a  matter  of  entire  indifference,  morally  and  intellectually,  to 
the  masses  of  the  people. 

III.  However  unsatisfactory  the  results  of  Catholic  pro- 
pagandism,  those  of  the  Protestant  missions  have 
testant™"  been  far  less  effective.  While  the  leading  laborers 
Missions  have  been  such  men  as  Morison,  Milne,  Lockhart, 
greater  Medhurst,  Legge,  Williams,  Bridgman,  of  a  per- 
faiiure.  sonai  ability  in  no  wise  inferior  to  the  Catholics, 
the  almost  infinitesimal  harvest  of  the  twenty  societies 
interested  in  these  missions,  in  comparison  with  that  of 
the  rival  Church,  points  us  to  those  radical  differences 
between  Chinese  and  Christian  beliefs,  which  are  empha- 
sized in  the  Protestant  much  more  than  in  the  Catholic 
dogma.  The  confession  of  failure  is  almost  uniform.  In 
the  five  Treaty  Ports,  the  Protestant  converts  amount  to 
about  four  thousand.1  In  1860,  the  number  of  the  mission- 
aries exceeded  that  of  the  converts  not  actually  in  their 
pay.2  Martin,  who  thinks  the  preachers  "  actuated  by  a 
nobler  purpose  "  than  the  priests,  is  obliged  to  confess  that 
the  demand  made  by  the  former  for  real  change  of  heart 
produces  little  or  no  effect,  as  compared  with  the  mere  out- 
ward confession  required  by  the  Catholics  ;  which  is  nat- 
ural enough.3  Brine's  account  of  the  English  and  American 
schools  for  Christian  education  is  no  less  discouraging.4 
Morison's  toils  and  failure  are  a  painful  record.5  So  little 
effect  has  been  produced  by  Christian  publications,  that  a 
Chinese  statesman  in  a  recent  memorial  treated  them  with 

1  Nevius,  pp.  363,  375.  2  Scarth,  Twelve  Years  in  China. 

3  Martin,  II.  491.  *  Brine,  p.  61. 

5  Zeitsch.  d.  D.  M.  G.t  1848. 


MISSIONARY    FAILURES    AND    FRUITS.  849 

entire  indifference.1  Respectable  natives  say  that  rogues, 
who  have  nothing  to  lose,  avail  themselves  of  baptism  as  a 
means  of  obtaining  wages  at  the  house  of  a  missionary. 
Educated  men  seldom  tolerate  the  Christian  teacher  in 
their  homes.  The  mandarins  generally  are  said  to  feel  the 
same  contempt  for  the  missionaries  as  for  the  bonzes,2  and 
are  hostile  to  them  simply  as  presumed  plotters  of  political 
and  commercial  change,  or  as  claiming  judicial  rights  over 
the  action  of  native  converts.3  The  Government  scorns  to 
notice  their  dogmas,  and  its  severest  rescripts  denounce 
simply  the  teaching  of  rebellion  by  disrespect  to  ancestors 
and  to  spirits.4  This  failure  to  interest  the  Chinese  mind 
is,  of  course,  fatal  to  Protestant  proselytism. 

Tens  of  thousands  of  Bibles  and  millions  of  tracts  are 
distributed  ;  but  hardly  an  instance  is  on  record  of  an 
appeal  for  explanation  of  Scripture.5  The  tracts,  distribu- 
ted by  thousands  at  the  competitive  examinations,  are  apt 
to  serve  for  wrapping  paper  in  the  market  of  Macao.6 
Missionary  publications  are  scarcely  known  beyond  the 
little  circle  of  converts.7  The  fact  cannot  surprise  us  when 
we  consider  that  the  majority  of  these  tracts  assert,  in  very 
bad  Chinese,  a  natural  depravity  in  man  as  groundwork  of 
the  scheme  of  Christian  salvation  ;  a  doctrine  absolutely 
irreconcilable  with  the  organic  life  of  the  nation  for  thou- 
sands of  years. 

We  have  by  no  means  expressed  our  sense  of  the  futility 
of  this  business.  No  fetichism  on  earth  compares  with 
the  enormous  expenditure  of  money,  machinery,  and  labor 
in  printing  and  circulating  Bibles  among  heathen  whose 
utter  waste  of  them  is  fully  equal  to  the  supply.  Even  the 

Medhurst,  Foreigner,  &*c.,  p.  45.  2  De  Mas,  p.  315. 

Hiibner,  pp.  619,  620  ;  Medhurst,  Foreigner,  &V.,  p.  37 ;   Brooks,  Seven  Months1  Run, 
p.    79. 

See  Medhurst's  China,  ch.  xxii. ;  Williams,  ch.  xix. 

Williams,  II.  343-  e  Doolittle,  I.  36. 

1  Gilt  is  Sketches;  by  an  official  for  eight  years  in  China ;  p.  168. 

54 


850  BELIEFS. 

Catholic  condones  his  own  priest-and-image  worship  by 
ridiculing  this  scheme  of  converting  men  by  the  contact 
and  authority  of  a  printed  book.1  He  contrasts  the  pro- 
digious expense  of  Protestant  official  machinery,  without 
result,  with  the  economy  of  his  own  effective  methods  ;  the 
married  sedentary  lives  of  the  teachers,  or  confinement  to 
the  neighborhood  of  the  large  cities,  and  their  avoidance 
of  personal  peril  and  direct  appeal  to  the  remoter  masses 
of  the  empire,  with  the  apostolic  lives  of  his  itinerant 
semi-Chinese  priests.2  He  points  to  the  large  dependence 
of  the  Protestants  on  Catholic  versions,  and  to  the  ad- 
mitted poorness  of  their  own.  He  affirms  perhaps  over- 
strongly,  that  if,  as  admitted  by  high  authority,  but  a 
fraction  of  the  handful  of  converts  adhere  to  their  faith, 
every  one  of  these  costs  England  and  America  a  quarter 
of  a  million  sterling.3 

So  discouraging  is  the  attem'pt  to  convert  a  vast  and 
Hopes  of  immemorial  civilization  to  a  new  religion  by  a 
miraculous  scheme  of  unauthorized  assumptions,  that  many 

conversion          ....... 

of  the  missionaries  take  refuge  in  the  expectation  that  a 
Chinese.  peOpie  wno  are  prOof  against  ordinary  methods 
will  be  Christianized  by  miracle.4  This  penchant  for  "  mi- 
raculous evidences "  in  the  logic  of  the  Christian,  which 
renders  it  so  ill-advised  in  him  to  bring  charges  of  super- 
stition against  the  heathen,  is  in  fact  an  impenetrable  bar- 
rier to  the  confidence  of  a  rationalistic  people  like  the 
Chinese.  They  readily  detect  the  absurdity  of  an  attempt 
to  absorb  all  their  own  sober  historical  traditions  into  the 
sacred  books  of  a  people  of  whom  they  never  heard,  upon 
the  pretence  that  this  people  has  been  miraculously  illu- 

1  Marshall,  Hist.  Missions,  I. 

2  Gutzlaff's  effort  to  introduce  the  Catholic  method  was  a  scandalous  failure  (Eitel,  Chin, 
Recorder,  Jan.,  1876). 

3  Marshall,  p.  169. 

*  Nevius  in  The  Nation,  May  6,  1869. 


MISSIONARY    FAILURES    AND   FRUITS.  85  I 

minated  to  furnish  the  criterions  of  truth  and  duty.  The 
old  Catholic  idea,  that  the  Chinese  were  "  Noes  Effect  of 
neveives"  ever  and  anon  re-appears  in  the  standard 
works  of  Protestant  missionaries.1  This  is  un-  tion. 
promising ;  but  the  prodigious  assumptions  of  exclusive 
ownership  in  the  way  of  salvation,  and  of  the  extreme  re- 
ligious blindness  of  the  heathen,  are  enough  to  defeat  the 
proselyting  efforts  of  any  body  of  men,  however  able  or 
sincere.  Medhurst  was  quietly  asked  if  he  supposed  there 
were  no  good  people  in  China  before  his  arrival,  and  how 
he  could  think  of  coming  there  to  exhort  people  to  be 
good. 

Some  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  commending 
Christianity  as  an  improvement  on  Chinese  beliefs  Admissions 
could  not  escape  the  missionaries  themselves.  Ne-  of  themis- 

.  . , .  f      ,  .          ,  sionaries. 

vius  mentions  the  inability  of  the  native  language 
to  express  Christian  ideas,  and  the  constant  necessity  for 
alluding  to  persons  and  usages  with  which  they  were  un- 
acquainted ;  and  he  even  wonders  "  how  without  special 
interposition  of  Providence  they  can  avoid  concluding  that 
polygamy  and  concubinage  are  recommended  by  our  re- 
ligion." 2  Neumann  remarks  on  the  disadvantage  of  not 
being  able  to  present  them  with  a  purer  ethics  than  their 
own.  "  The  historical  element  in  the  Bible  should  be 
separated  from  the  ethical."  "  A  Chinese  who  has  seen 
the  habits  of  Hong-Kong,  or  who  has  suffered  from  the 
persecution  of  Californians,  will  hardly  show  desire  to  be 
converted  to  Christianity.  A  sagacious  Chinese  once  said 
to  me :  '  True,  you  are  our  superiors  in  science  Argumema 
and  discovery.  But  our  moral  principle  is  much  «dh°'ni- 
more  efficient.  Our  masses  are  much  less  vicious 
and  self-seeking  than  your  Christians,  such  at  least  as  we 

1  See  Legge's  account  of  Yu's  deluge;  Kidd's  China,  p.  212  ;  Williams,  II.  199      A  wri- 
ter in  the   Chinese  Recorder  argues  that  the   mythical  Pwan-ku  is  no  other  than   the  Bible 
Cush  ;  whence  Hindu  Cush  ! 

2  Nevius,  p.  648. 


852  BELIEFS. 

see  in  our  country.'  "  1  Williams  mentions  similar  "  argu- 
menta  ad  hominem  ; "  such  as  that  the  Christians  were 
proved  unfit  instructors  in  benevolence,  by  sending  opium 
to  China  ;  in  rectitude,  by  intimidating  her  with  fleets  and 
armies  ;  in  filial  piety,  by  neglect  of  parents  after  death ; 
and  in  morals  generally,  by  the  intemperate  lives  and 
reckless  cupidity  of  professed  Christians  in  China.2  Med- 
hurst  allows  that  the  Chinese  do  not  improve  by  contact 
with  the  foreigners  ;3  and  Hiibner,  that  the  foreign  popu- 
lation of  the  ports  has  little  confidence  in  the  efficacy  of 
the  missions.4  The  prolonged  and  hopeless  disputes  of 
sects  and  translators  over  the  name  of  God  do  not  improve 
the  situation.  The  more  intelligent  Chinese  call  the  mis- 
sionaries "  preachers  of  lies,"  5  and  "  regard  our  (badly  trans- 
lated) Scriptures,  and  Christianity  itself,  as  a  tissue  of 
absurdities  and  impious  pretensions." 6 

The  real  service  of  Christian  missionaries  has  not  been 
Real  ser  *n  Proselyting,  but  in  labors  to  enlighten  the  minds 
vices  of  and  heal  the  bodies  of  the  Chinese  by  Western 
t»tanT  science,  and  to  make  known  the  literature  of  this 
mission-  hitherto  unknown  people  to  the  world.  Their  sci- 
entific uses  have  been  the  ground  on  which  they 
have  found  welcome  and  even  honor  from  the  Government. 
The  Bishop  of  Peking  wrote  the  Queen  of  Portugal  that 
missionaries  should  be  mathematicians,  physicians,  sur- 
geons, apothecaries,  clock-makers,  engineers,  machinists, 
painters ;  because  any  of  these  qualifications  would  easily 
open  the  gates  of  that  city.7  From  first  to  last,  the  emis- 
saries of  every  sect  have  acquired  position  by  means  of 
practical  services,  wholly  apart  from  religious  teaching. 
And  if  Dr.  Legge  is  right  in  regarding  the  missionary 
enterprise  as  the  greatest  blessing  that  has  fallen  to  China, 

1  Neumann,  Ost-Asiat.  Gfsch.,  pp.  457,  487.  2  Mid.  Kingd.,  II    378. 

3  Foreigner  in  Far  Cathay,  p.  188.  *  Ramble,  drc.,  p.  618. 

s  Sirr,  China,  II.  ch.  x.  e  Meadows,  Chin.  RebelL,  p.  79. 

7  DeMas,  11.313. 


MISSIONARY    FAILURES    AND    FRUITS.  853 

this  can  be  the  case  only  upon  the  ground  now  stated. 
China  has  always  had  a  desire  for  mathematical  writings, 
and  the  demand  has  been  met  with  great  energy  by  Euro- 
pean teachers,  ever  since  Ricci  began  by  translating  the 
books  of  Euclid.  Wylie  gives  a  list  large  enough  to  show 
a  commendable  zeal  for  such  positive  studies.1 

But  the  crown  of  the  Protestant  missions  has  been  their 
medical  institutions.     The  reports  of  Drs.  Parker 

The  Pro- 

and  Lockhart  constitute  one  of  the  noblest  rec-  testant 
ords  of  effective  humanity  in  history,  and  must  be  hospitals- 
counted  to  the  credit  of  the  Christian  faith  in  so  far  as  they 
proceeded  from  religious  motives.  The  number  of  sufferers 
relieved  by  these  and  similar  institutions  under  Protestant 
direction  is  estimated  at  three  quarters  of  a  million  ;  and 
the  grateful  appreciation  of  their  humanities  has  been  fully 
equal  to  their  value.2  Dr.  Lockhart,  in  his  interesting  vol- 
ume, labors  to  impress  the  idea  that  these  medical  services 
were  intended  to  subserve  "  the  dissemination  of  gospel 
truth."  3  Dr.  Macgowan  "  presented  the  facts  of  electricity 
before  the  Chinese  mind  in  such  form  that  some  of  the 
elementary  truths  (dogmas)  of  Christianity  were  made  evi- 
dent." 4  "  Tracts  directing  the  reader  to  the  '  true  Physi- 
cian '  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  those  who  were  relieved."6 
Mr.  Abeel  "  conversed  with  the  patients  at  the  Amoy  hos- 
pital on  religious  subjects  daily."  This  recognition  of  the 
immense  importance  of  scientific  and  practical  humanities 
as  conditions  of  access  for  Christianity  to  the  Chinese  peo- 
ple6 is  the  clearest  admission  that  it  is  by  the  moral, 
not  the  theological  or  specifically  religious,  side  success 
that  Western  civilization  is  destined  to  work  in  ame-  contra->ted 

with  theo 

liorating  the  Eastern  world.     How  slight  are  the  logical 
results  on  the  latter  side,  which  the  missionaries  failure* 

See  also  Knowlton,  in  Chin.  Recorder,  May,  1870;  Williams,  II.  337. 

Brine;  Williams,  II.  346-35°  ;  Chin.  Repos.,  Aug.,  1841,  April,  1843;  Martin,  II.  493; 


Ne 


ius,  p.  341  ;  Lockhart'  s  Medical  Missionary,  &"c. 
Medical  Missionary  in  Chii:a,  pp.  217-224,  183. 
Lockhart,  p.  232.  5  Ibid.,  p.  217.  «  See  Williams,  II.  353;  Lockhart,  i  116. 


854  BELIEFS. 

most  desire,  is  illustrated  in  a  report  of  Dr.  Hobson,1  in 
which,  speaking  of  his  medical  institution,  he  says  that 
"  the  fruit  of  many  faithful  discourses,  of  frequent  religious 
conversations,  and  of  thousands  of  tracts,"  has  been  '4  the 
conversion  of  two  patients  and  a  hopeful  change  in  the  con- 
duct of  several  others."  The  effort  to  impress  on  the  native 
mind  that  the  ultimate  motive  and  end  of  all  this  humanity 
is  "  to  convert  it  from  the  service  of  idols  to  the  living  God  " 
is  honestly  admitted  by  Dr.  Lockhart  to  be  a  failure.2  It 
may  be  hoped  that  so  palpable  a  lesson  will  redound  to  the 
increase  of  more  spontaneous  forms  of  virtue. 

Equally  deserving  are  the  efforts  of  Protestant  mission- 
Literary  aries  to  diffuse  a  knowledge  of  Chinese  literature 
labors.  through  the  Western  world.  The  writings  of  Wil- 
liams, Doolittle,  Nevius,  Medhurst,  and  others  are  fa- 
miliar to  the  public  ;  and  the  highest  gratitude  is  due  to 
those  devoted  toils  which  have  resulted  in  the  English 
periodicals  printed  in  China  during  the  last  half  century,  — 
the  "  Repository,"  the  "  Recorder,"  the  "  Review,"  the  "  Notes 
and  Queries,"  all  of  which  have  been  largely  the  work  of 
missionaries.  The  labors  of  Legge,  Marshman,  Bridgman, 
Milne,  have  given  us  the  classical  and  educational  writ- 
ings of  China  ;  those  of  Eitel,  Faber,  Edkins,  Chalmers, 
valuable  works  on  the  language  and  literature.  Although, 
for  ourselves,  we  find  what  seems  a  larger  and  better  esti- 
mate of  the  subject  in  writers  from  a  secular  standpoint, 
such  as  Meadows,  Julien,  Pauthier,  Davis,  Lay,  —  we  are 
very  far  from  under-estimating  the  bearing  of  the  laborious 
scholarship  of  the  Protestant  missionaries  on  the  purposes 
of  Universal  Religion.  This  is  far  more  obvious  than  their 
likelihood  to  aid  in  the  propagation  of  technical  Christianity. 
It  is  simply  inconceivable  to  one  who  reads  the  constant 
declarations  that  the  Chinese  have  no  word  to  represent 
God,  or  spiritual  essence,  and  no  conception  of  the  natural 

1  Lockhart,  p.  182.  2  Ibid.,  p.  189. 


MISSIONARY    FAILURES   AND    FRUITS.  855 

corruption  of  mankind,  how  these  worthy  people  can  expect 
the  conversion  of  such  a  race  to  such  dogmas  as  theirs. 

In  view  of  all  these  facts,  the  pictures  of  a  China  re- 
generated by  the  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  Sum  of 
painted  by  enthusiasts  like  Dr.  Speer,1  are  certainly 
extraordinary.  Nowhere  in  Chinese  annals  is  there  »ts  lesson, 
any  recognition  of  Christian  doctrines  that  have  been  in- 
dustriously propagated  among  them  for  a  thousand  years. 
The  tide  of  race-tendency  sweeps  steadily  on,  unimpressed  ; 
incapable,  it  would  seem,  of  even  taking  cognizance  of  these 
conceptions  of  a  fallen  nature,  and  a  mediatorial  salvation 
through  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Never  was  there  a  more  con- 
clusive witness  against  the  dream  of  substituting  one  dis- 
tinctive religion  for  another  in  the  consciousness  of  a  race 
previously  unrelated  by  historical  tradition  or  other  affinity 
to  the  supplanting  force.  Never  a  plainer  admonition  to 
direct  our  interest  in  remote  civilizations  to  those  deeper 
ethical  and  spiritual  processes  which  run  beneath  all  special 
faiths  or  systems  ;  and  to  give  such  emphasis  to  these  nat- 
ural forces  as  shall  everywhere  discover  and  bring  to  con- 
scious life  the  free  unity  of  spirit  on  which  the  future  of 
religion  depends. 

1  China,  pp.  671,  672. 


IV. 
TAO-ISM. 


TAO-ISM. 


I 


LAO-TSE. 

N  Buddhism  we  have  seen  the  entrance  into  Chinese 
civilization  of  a  sense  of  invisible  relations  and  Recapitu- 
a  philosophy  of  release  from  pain  and  change,  which  lation  of 

.     Buddhist 

lay  out  of  the  line  of  its  culture  and  supplemented  relations 
its  special  defects.  To  the  practical  interests  in  toChma- 
which  the  Chinese  were  mainly  absorbed  Buddhism  was 
essentially  alien.  It  is  true  that  the  humanity  which 
marked  its  influence  on  semi-barbarous  tribes,  although 
not  so  conspicuous  in  a  mature  and  well-organized  society, 
did  not  fail  even  here  to  minister  to  physical  needs.  It 
even  sought  friendly  relations  with  the  concrete  State, 
which  greatly  aided  its  growth.  But  none  the  less  were 
its  institutions  planted  in  renunciation  of  the  social  and 
political  world.  In  its  philosophy  and  ethics,  family,  mar- 
ket, farm,  and  State  were  illusions,  having  indeed  the  func- 
tion of  supporting  the  equally  illusory  body  of  the  saint 
himself,  but  wholly  external  to  the  true  end  of  existence. 
Its  ideal  was  separatist ;  its  theme,  not  governments  and 
social  interests,  but  a  kingdom  not  of  this  world.  It 
pointed  to  the  impermanence  of  these  powers  in  proof  of 
their  unreality.  A  guest  in  realistic  China,  it  had  to 
accept  the  actual  mould  in  which  society  was  cast  as  a 
phenomenon  ;  but  none  the  less  positively  did  it  pronounce 
this  mould  phantasmal,  and  pursue  its  destruction  by  the 
eternal  realities  of  Karma  and  Nirvana.  Modified  by  its 
setting  in  Chinese  material  constructiveness,  its  Hindu 
essence  remained  entrenched  behind  a  psychological  bar- 
rier mightier  and  more  stable  than  the  Himmaleh  that 


860  BELIEFS. 

divided  the  two  races  on  the  physical  globe.  How  the 
contrarieties  were  made  helpful  by  mutual  hospitalities, 
and  resulted  in  revealing  unexpected  affinities,  we  have 
endeavored  to  trace  in  the  preceding  sections. 

.But  we  are  now  to  observe  another  religion  of  China ; 
one  which  by  reason  of  its  roots  in  the  national  soil  en- 
tered more  deeply  into  the  national  spirit,  and  aimed  not 
at  its  destruction  but  at  its  idealization.  Lao-tse  did  not, 
Difference  like  Buddha,  separate  the  ideal  from  the  actual, 
of  Lao-tse  the  infinite  from  the  finite,  the  invisible  from  the 

from  Bud- 
dha: not     visible,  the  soul  from  the  State,  as  mutually  incom- 

^eTbu't  patible.  With  Chinese  constructiveness,  he  de- 
ideaiist.  manded  their  reconciliation  and  unity.  With 
Chinese  concreteness,  he  refused  to  hold  the  absolute  idea 
apart  from  embodiment,  and  insisted  that  to  it  belonged 
the  motives  and  methods  of  all  practical  spheres.  Govern- 
ment, the  ultimate  aim  and  sum  of  thi-s  concrete  national 
tendency,  he  desired  not  to  abolish,  but  to  transform  into 
that  spontaneity  and  spiritual  reality  which  would  express 
the  Reason  and  Law  of  the  universe  in  the  life  of  man. 
It  was  not,  as  I  conceive,  his  purpose  to  withdraw  a  body 
of  ascetics  from  a  world  of  dream,  but  to  put  a  real  world  of 
men  and  women  in  possession  of  the  secret  of  public  hap- 
piness and  private  virtue,  of  the  grounds  of  political  institu- 
tions and  social  science  in  ideal  faith  and  consecration. 

Thus  conceived,  the  philosophy  of  Lao-tse  1  is  not  more 
His  phii-     truly  a  reaction  against  the  organized  institutes  of 
osophyas    the  Chinese,  than  an  outgrowth  of  their  psycho- 
outgrowth    logical  habit  on  the  best  side ;  an  ideal  justification 
e  of  this  in  the  form  of  protest  against  its  practical 

reaction         perversion. 

cEL          This  home  relation  appears  to  have   been  en- 

institu-       tirely  overlooked  by  the  expounders  of  Lao-tse ; 

most  of  whom,  so  far  as  I  have  found,  assume  that 

1  Or  LAO-TZK  ;  the  ao  pronounced  like  the  German  au,  and  the  e  as  in  the  French  le. 


LAO-TSE.  86 1 

his  system  is  so  thoroughly  antagonistic  to  Chinese  life 
as  to  prove  either  a  foreign  origin,1  or  else  a  deliberate 
purpose  to  overthrow  and  -abolish  the  whole  fabric  of  gov- 
ernment in  the  interest  of  quietism  or  negation.2  Both 
these  hypotheses  seem  to  me  inconsistent  not  only  with 
the  character  of  the  Chinese  mind,  but  with  the  results  of 
such  study  of  the  Tao-te-king,  as  is  now  made  practicable 
by  no  less  than  five  translations  into  Western  languages 
by  the  ablest  sinologists  of  the  age. 

Lao-tse,  it  must  be  admitted,  stands  alone  ;  without  a 
school,  without  apparent  recognition.  His  root  is  Hisisoia- 
indeed  in  the  old  monotheism  of  the  Shi  and  the  !ionand 

imperson- 

Shu,  and  he  unfolds  their  intuitive  simplicity  and  aiity. 
first-hand  contact  with  Nature.  His  ethics  are  not  in  con- 
flict with  Confucius.3  He  is  not  without  predecessors  of 
like  spirit  ;  for  he  abounds  in  sentences  out  of  some  ancient 
lore,  of  which  we  have  no  knowledge  but  from  him.  A  few 
of  his  followers  have  written  sayings  in  his  mood.  But 
he  preached  not  for  the  many ;  and  though  the  originality 
and  loftiness  of  his  gospel  have  enforced  admiration  in  all 
later  Chinese  epochs,  and  his  book  —  a  piece  of  sainthood 
as  fascinating  as  it  is  transcendental  —  has  spoken  like  an 
oracle  to  each  reader  in  his  own  personal  tongue,  yet  Lao- 
tse  illustrates  the  truth  that  "  to  be  great  is  to  be  misun- 
derstood." His  personal  life  made  no  outward  mark. 
Birth  and  names  ; 4  official  functions  in  the  archives  of 
Tcheou  ;  withdrawal  from  corruptions  he  could  not  stem  ;  5 
a  questionable  interview  with  Confucius,  and  an  equally 

1  Wuttke,  II.  82  ;  Eckstein,  Jour.  Asia/.,  Sept.  and  Oct.,  1842. 

2  Even   Remusat,  who  considers  it  the  starting  point  of  Chinese  religion,  has  apparently 
no  conception  of  this  connecting  bond  of  psychological  relation,  and  actually  regards  the  later 
Tao-sse  school  as  the  proper  interpreters  of  its  meaning.     The  ignorance  of  most  authorities 
for  popular  opinion  concerning   China   is  illustrated   by  Barrow,   who   asserts   that    Lao-tse 
changed  the  Buddhist  metempsychosis  into  a  scheme  of  resuming  the  body  after  death  through 
certain  medicinal  substances. 

8  Compare  especially  the  first  chapter  of  the  Tahio  with  the  Tao-te-king  (liv.). 

*  Julien's  Introd.  to  Tao-te-king. 

5  Von  Strauss's  Introd,  to  Tao-te-king  (Ivi.). 


862  BELIEFS. 

doubtful  journey  to  the  West ; l  death  at  an  unknown 
place  and  time  ;  a  title  which  means  simply  Old  Master, 
or  Venerable  Saint,  —  the  rest  "is  legend  ;  semi-Buddhist 
myths  of  incarnation,2  or  the  wild  fancies  of  a  school  of 
thatimaturgists  and  spirit-mongers,  who  have  not  the  most 
distant  idea  of  his  meaning. 

He  is  a  word  ;  a  protest  and  prophecy  in  one ;  a  book, 
—  the  Tao-te-king,  or  Classic  of  the  Way  (Law 
or  Reason)  of  Righteousness ; 3  a  voice  of  univer- 
sal truth  and  sentiment,  appealing  to  all  ages,  yet  in  its 
special  form,  like  all  such,  incomprehensible  without  close 
regard  to  the  people  and  the  time  to  which  it  spoke,  and  to 
whose  current  speech  and  conduct  it  applied  ideal  tests. 

Nothing  like  this  book  exists  in  Chinese  literature ; 
Uni  uem  n°thmg,  so  far  as  yet  known,  so  lofty,  so  vital,  so 
Chinese  restful  at  the  roots  of  strength  ;  in  structure  as 
wonderful  as  in  spirit  ;  the  fixed  syllabic  characters 
formed  for  visible  and  definite  meaning,  here  compacted 
into  terse  aphorisms  of  a  mystical  and  universal  wisdom, 
so  subtly  translated  out  of  their  ordinary  spheres  to  meet 
a  demand  for  spiritual  expression  that  it  is  confessedly  al- 
most impossible  to  render  them  with  certainty  into  another 
tongue,  i  The  Western  translators  differ  materially  in  the 
rendering  of  terms  and  phrases.4  The  native  commenta- 

1  Originated  many  centuries  after  his  time.     Kaiiffer,  Gesch.  d.  Ost-Asien,  II.  74,  91. 

2  For  these  legends  see  Bastian,  Peking,  pp.  418-422,  454-486. 

3  Re'musat  translates  it,  "  Book  of  the  Reason  and  of  Virtue  ;  "  Julien,  "  Book  of  the  Way 
and  of  Virtue." 

4  (i)  The  immense  resources  of  Julien  for  explaining  the  Tao-te-king  would  give  his  ver- 
sion supreme  authority,  but  for  the  fact  that  the  later  commentators  whom  he  uses  are  as  likely 
to  illustrate  the  philosopher's  statement  that  he  was  understood  by  few,  as  did  the  men  of  his 
own  generation.     Many  of  his  renderings,  moreover,  are  incoherent  and  obscure,  and  force  us 
to  seek  further  light.     (2)  The  German  version  of  Von  Strauss,  prepared  with  evident  schol- 
arship and  a  skilful  use  of  all  other  labors  in  the  field,  wins  entire   respect,  and  brings  great 
light  into  dark  places.    (3)  Plancker  sets  aside  all  interpreters,  native  and  foreign,  and  offers 
a  mystical  version  strikingly  different  from  all  others-     However  mingled  with  appreciation  of 
spiritual  elements  in  the  Teacher,  the  European   metaphysics  of  this  version  weakens  our  con- 
fidence.     (4)  The  English  version  of  Chalmers,  though  compact  and  forcible,  repels  by  a  dis- 
regard of  dignity,  quite  out  of  place  in  such  a  work  (see  Ivi.,  xxviii.,  Ixviii.).  and  fails  of  the 
spiritual  glow  and  elevation  that  must  have  pervaded  the  original.     We  pretend  only  to  a  sin- 
cere endeavor  to  infer  the  common  truth  which  is  partially  expressed  in  these  various  versions. 


LAO-TSE.  863 

tors,  so  far  as  we  are  as  yet  acquainted  with  them,  throw 
little  light  on  their  master  ;  while  the  teachings  of  the 
Tao-sse  school  are  in  palpable  contrast  with  his  spirit. 
Nevertheless,  these  drawbacks  do  not  hide  the  substantial 
meaning  ;  since  the  very  differences  in  these  many  author- 
ities enable  us  the  better  to  construct  the  portrait  which  all 
partially  suggest.  And  to  this  end  we  need  to  take  our 
standpoint  in  a  wide  and  impartial  view  of  the  nature  of 
Chinese  civilization,  which  can  be  supplied  only  by  an  inde- 
pendent study  of  translations  ;  while  the  linguistic  contro- 
versies that  beset  the  theme  could  result  in  no  satisfactory 
knowledge  to  the  professed  sinologist  himself. 

Between  the  translators  and  the  critics,  Lao-tse  has  been' 
made  responsible,  not  only  for  the  later  supersti-  Doctrines 
tions  of  Tao-sse  astrologers,  diviners,  elixir-seekers,  ascribed  to 
and  spirit  mediums,  of  which  the  Tao-te-king  does 
not  contain  a  trace  ;  but  for  personal  belief  in  "  a  chaos," 
in  "  an  immense  void  before  creation,"  in  "  the  miseries 
of  transmigration,"  and  even  for  the  desire  "to  live  with- 
out labor  on  the  credulity  of  his  fellow-men."  1  He  is 
charged  with  a  more  negative  and  destructive  spirit  than 
that  of  Buddhism  ;  with  a  "  philosophy  of  caves  and  soli- 
tary places  as  the  domain  of  pure  spirit,"  whose  pride  is 
"  to  tread  the  world  under  foot,"  and  to  play  the  part  of 
immobility  and  inaction,  —  holding  with  the  Sankhya,  that 
the  soul  is  a  spectator  only,  and  not  even  in  contact  with 
the  senses.2  "  He  mixes  the  act  of  creation  with  old  Sivaite 
myths  by  which  Nature  becomes  the  working  of  a  generated 
and  imprisoned  spirit."  3  "  His  idea  of  paradise  is  as  an- 
archical as  that  of  Confucius  is  patriarchal."  4  "  He  would 

strip  off  all   contingent  modes   of  being,  and  reduce  the 

• 

All  fortunately  agree  that  the  work  is  thoroughly  authentic.  The  last  version  (Strauss)  en- 
dorses the  judgment  of  the  first  (Re"musat),  that  "  there  is  no  book  in  China  of  whose  age  and 
integrity  there  is  so  complete  certainty  as  of  this." 

1  See  Williams,  II.  243.  2  Eckstein,  Jour.  As.  (Sept.  and  Oct.,  1842). 

3  Ibid.  *  Schott,  Chin.  Lit. 


864  BELIEFS. 

senses  to  entire  impotence,  that  existence  may  return  to 
its  principle,"  while  the  people  are  to  be  kept  in  primitive 
ignorance  that  they  may  not  learn  evil,  and  so  thwart  this 
object  of  all  morality.1  He  is  "a  pessimist  and  an  obscur- 
antist." 2  "  His  '  non-being '  is  opposed  to  being,  as  his 
'  non-action'  to  action."3  Julien  makes  him  protest  against 
all  mental  action,  and  involves  him  thereby  in  hopeless  con- 
tradictions. Even  Von  Strauss  revives  Re"musat's  idea  of 
a  cabalistic  reference  in  his  descriptive  designation  of  the 
Tao  to  the  Hebrew  word  Jehovah.  Add  to  this  the  in- 
genuity of  the  Jesuit  scholars  in  detecting  in  the  Tao-te- 
king  a  heathen  witness  to  the  Trinity,  the  Logos,  and  the 
Incarnation,  five  centuries  before  Christ,  —  and  we  shall 
have  some  idea  of  the  burden  laid  by  interpreters  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  great  mystical  teacher  of  the  East. 

Of  all  this  portraiture  I  can  find  little  or  no  trace  in  the 
None  of  Tao-te-king  itself,  and  feel  the  less  confidence  in 
these  in  sucn  charges  the  more  carefully  authorities  are 
king,  its  compared,  and  the  time  and  motive  of  its  compo- 
character-  sition  considered.  It  is  a  book  of  wonderful  ethi- 
cal and  spiritual  simplicity,  and  deals  neither  in 
speculative  cosmogony,  nor  in  popular  superstitions.  It  is 
not  the  "  Speculations  of  an  Old  Philosopher."  4  It  is  in 
practical  earnest,  and  speaks  from  the  heart  and  to  the 
heart.  Its  religion  resembles  that  of  Fe"nelon  or  Thomas  a 
Kempis,  combined  with  a  perceptive  rationalism  of  which 
they  were  not  masters.  It  knows  nothing  of  "  chaos,"  nor 
"  void  time,"  nor  of  metempsychosis  (which  entered  China 
with  Buddhism),  nor  of  the  worship  of  spirits  (a  develop- 
ment of  the  later  Tao-sse).5  The  sexual  myths  of  Eckstein 

1  Pauthier,  in  Franck's  Diet.  d.  Sciences  Philosoph. 

1  Bunsen,  God  injfistory,  I.  265.  3  Carre,  L^Ancien.  Orient.,  I.  401-403. 

4  Chalmers  so  entitles  it. 

5  The  one  allusion  (Ix.)  on  which  this  last  charge  is  founded  is  apparently  intended  to  pro- 
tect the  traditional  faith  in  ancestral  presence  and  help,  from  the  influence  of  superstitious  be- 
liefs in  evil  demons.     Julien  translates  it :   "  The  great  point  is  not  that  spirits  will  not  injure 
men,  but  that  the  wise  man  does  not."     Von  Strauss  says,   "  The  kwei  will  not  harm  a  rightly 
governed  people  by  shin  (demonic)  influence." 


LAO-TSE.  865 

have  no  other  foundation  than  the  name,  "  Mother  of  all 
beings,"  applied  to  the  Tao  ;  and  his  "  drudging  soul  of 
Nature"  is  only  discernible  in  an  ethical  exhortation  to 
become  masters  of  men  by  ministering  service,  not  by  op- 
pressive control.1  The  Tao-te-king  is  neither  ascetic  nor 
pessimist  ;  it  does  not  despise  the  body.2  It  holds  the  in- 
dividual to  exalted  ideals,  and  claims  the  world  for  noble 
uses.  So  far  is  this  virtue  from  "  anti-social  pride  "  or  the 
aim  at  inaction,  that  its  constant  theme  is  the  abdication 
of  personal  claim  and  the  love  and  service  of  mankind.  Its 
supposed  "  hostility  to  popular  education  and  prog- 
ress  "  is  a  strongly  expressed  preference  of  spon-  posedob- 
taneity  and  simplicity  of  heart  to  the  vanity  of  a  scurantism- 
culture  thoroughly  pedagogic  and  prescriptive.  It  is  a 
prophet's  cry :  Better  begin  afresh  with  the  first  steps  of 
civilization,  with  only  knotted  cords  to  convey  thought, 
with  an  insignificant  State  that  has  to  mind  its  own  affairs, 
and  whose  people  have  every  thing  to  learn,  than  boast  a 
civilization  grown  so  wise  in  the  self-complacency  of  vir- 
tuous phrases  and  precepts,  of  mere  quantity  in  things 
known  and  done,  without  reality  and  without  faith,  that  it 
is  perishing  of  its  own  machinery  of  prohibitions  and  pre- 
scriptions in  sheer  ignorance  of  the  spiritual  and  humane 
conditions  of  power.3  This  is  the  natural  meaning  of  those 
passages  of  Lao-tse  which  have  been  charged  with  "  ob- 
scurantism," 4  when  viewed  in  their  relations  with  the  facts 
of  Chinese  government  and  society  in  the  age  to  which  he 
addressed  them.  This  practical  and  public  mo- 

*  i  Its  practi- 

tive  gives  intensity  to  his  insistence  on  the  laws  of  cai  pur- 
self-reliance  and  self-restraint,  on  the  mastery  of  pose' 
eager  ambitions,  on  the  powers  of  silence  and  the  adequacy 

1  Tao-te-king;  chs.  Ixvi.,  Ixviii.,  Ixxviii.,  li. 

2  Ibid.,  ch.  xiii.,  supposed  to  teach  such  contempt,  merely  uses  the  body  as  an  illustration 
of  our  regard  and  care  for  what  is  nevertheless  the  condition  of  all  forms  of  pain,  to  enforce  the 
duty  of  loving  the  public  interests,  however  great  the  personal  sacrifices  they  demand. 

8  See  Ibid.,  chs.  xviii.,  xix.,  Ivi-,  Ivii  ,  Ixv.,  Ixvii.,  xxvi.,  xxviiL 
*  Ibid.,  chs.  Ixxx.,  xviii.,  iii.,  xxix. 

55 


866  BELIEFS. 

of  inward  peace  ;  to  his  faith  in  the  invisible,  impalpable, 
and  outwardly  weak,  in  unexpected  resources  and  reserves 
of  moral  power  ; l  as  well  as  to  that  lofty  preference  of  be- 
ing to  doing,2  and  non-interference  with  the  freedom  of 
others,3  which  have  been  mistaken  for  negative  quietism, 
and  even  for  idleness  and  self-indulgence. 

Such  misinterpretations  as  have  been  quoted  simply  re- 
..    .     ,  duce  the  Tao-te-king  to  a  mass  of  self-contradic- 

Meaning  ol 

its"non-  tions.  Its  "  non-action  "  does  not  propose  that  man 
shall  forbear  while  the  work  is  done  by  Heaven, 
but  is  defined  as  a  living  union  with  Tao,  as  secret  power 
to  make  all  things  new,4  through  humility  and  self-renun- 
ciation ;  a  still  and  unapparent  strength  that  "  does  not 
strive,"  but  "  hides  itself  while  it  lifts  up  men."  5  Its  para- 
doxes, putting  the  least  above  the  greatest,  and  rest  above 
work,  are  intuitions  of  the  spiritual  mind  ;  enforcements  of 
substance  against  shadow,  of  living  soul  against  dead  mass. 
Philosophically  they  affirm  that  cyclic  return  of  strength  to 
weakness  and  back  again  to  itself,  on  which  all  life  and 
growth  depend.  They  illustrate  the  ethical  laws  that  he 
who  humbles  himself  shall  be  exalted,  and  he  who  minis- 
ters shall  rule  ;  laws  on  which  the  whole  gospel  of  this 
marvellous  teacher  incessantly  turns. 

As  its  "  non-action  "  is  not  effort  to  destroy  the  body 
Meaning     and  suppress  sensation,  so  its  term  "  non-existent " 
is  employed   to  designate  no  merely  abstract  es- 


sence, but  the  reference  of  all  beings  to  a  Law 
beyond  their  finiteness ;  a  law  whose  transcendence  does 
not  separate  it  from  life,  since  it  is  the  "  Mother  of  all 
Beings  ;  "  their  "  asylum  and  support."  Lao-tse  does  not 
teach  with  the  Sank-hya,  that  the  soul  is  but  a  spectator 
of  the  world,  nor  with  the  Buddhist  that  it  should  detach 
itself  from  life.  In  brief,  what  he  deals  with  is  not  abstract 

1   Tao-te-king,  chs.  xlv.,  xxxv.  2  Ibid.,  chs.  xxxviii.,  xlvii. 

8  Ibid.,  chs.  xxxii.,  Ixiv.,  Ivi-,  Ivii.  *  Ibid.,  chs.  xxii.,  Ixviii.,  xxxv. 

6  Ibid.,  chs.  li.,  Ixx.,  xxxiv.,  xxviiL 


LAO-TSE.  867 

logic  and  metaphysic,  but  personal  character  and  spiritual 
insight,  moral  earnestness  and  devout  faith.  He  does  not 
"  seek  paradise  through  anarchy  ;  "  he  summons  "  a  pater- 
nal government "  of  minute  regulations  to  respect  the  right 
of  the  person  to  follow  principles,  not  as  the  slave  of  rules, 
but  as  freeman  of  his  own  conscience  and  love.1  He  espe- 
cially recurs  to  the  symbol  of  childhood  to  express  this 
faith  in  spontaneity  and  simplicity,  this  liberty  of  un- 
forced obedience  to  the  laws  of  our  being  ;  and  repeatedly 
claims  that  it  means  earthly  power  and  immortal  life.2 

The  Tao-te-king  is  water  from  unseen  wells ;  life  from 
original  fountains.  It  has  its  store  of  rhythmic  Its  origin. 
sentences  from  older  times,  and  often  reminds  us  ality- 
of  the  later  sages  ;  but  it  has  not  borrowed  Jehovah  from 
the  Hebrews,  nor  received  providential  presentiments  of 
the  Greek  Logos  and  the  Christian  Trinity.  Equally  un- 
warranted, so  far  as  I  can  see,  is  Julien's  inference  that 
the  Tao  is  "  a  being  deprived  of  action,  thought,  and 
desire,  and  in  no  sense  an  intelligent  cause."  3 

The  name  Tao  may  be  traced  throughout  Chinese 
thought,  under  the  signification,  in  some  form  or  Meaning 
other,  of  a  world-basis  in  principles  as  distin-  of  Tao  ** 
guished  from  individual  volitions  or  forms  of  con-  and  intei- 
sciousness  analogous  to  human,  yet  with  tacit  or  hgence- 
expressed  reference  to  the  ethical  and  religious  sphere  ; 
indicating  truth  of  doctrine,  principle  of  conduct,  reason 
and  right  in  human  judgment ;  in  brief,  the  Right  and 
Righteous  Way.  Thus  while  behind  personality  as  sub- 
stance, it  is  nevertheless  as  life,  as  manifestation,  the 
active  force  of  matter  and  mind.  "  Truth,"  says  the  Con- 
fucian, "  is  Heaven's  Tao ;  the  cultivation  of  it  is  man's.4 

1   Tao-te-kittg,  chs.  xxxii.,  Ivii.,  Ixiv.  2  Ibid.,  chs.  xxviii.,  lii.,  Iv. 

3  The  passages  he  quotes  (xviii.,  xxx.,  xxxi.)  prove  nothing  of  the  kind.  Plath  (Rel.  d. 
Alt.  Ch.)  says  the  character  is  composed  of  two  others,  meaning  Head,  and  to  go  ;  i.  e.t  to  go 
in  the  highest  way.  See  Lunyu,  I.  4,  8.  The  Y-king  says  Yin  and  Yang  are  called  Tao. 

*  Chung-yung,  XX.  18.     See  also  Lvnyu,  I.  2. 


868  BELIEFS. 

The  Shu,  in  one  of  its  oldest  chapters,1  speaks  of  the 
"heart  of  Tao."  And  Lao-tse  constantly  describes  it  by 
every  function  of  spiritual  being  and  work,  —  as  Maker, 
Preserver,  Guardian,  Father,  Lover  ;  ground  of  all  moral- 
ity, wisdom,  power,  and  joy.  It  perhaps  points  to  a  ra- 
tionalist philosophy  of  very  early  times,  by  which  the 
traditional  anthropomorphism  may  have  been  assailed  ; 
and  it  has  even  been  supposed  that  Confucius,  in  his  sin- 
gular warning  against  the  "  Tao  of  antiquity,"  had  in  view 
some  such  ancient  school.  At  all  events,  the  Tao  of  Lao- 
tse  emphasizes  union  of  inconceivable  substance  with 
energy  of  concrete  life,  in  a  manner  very  different  from 
any  thing  in  that  purely  practical  and  political  sage. 

Yet,  in  another  point  of  view,  it  is  perhaps  the  most 
"The  striking  illustration  of  that  absorption  of  the  ab- 
w!fy»  stract  into  the  concrete  which  we  note  as  the  main 
als°-  feature  of  Chinese  thought.  Principle  is  here  rec- 
ognized not  as  a  metaphysical  form,  but  as  a  "  Right  Way." 
In  the  Tao-te-king  the  idea  rises  to  spiritual  grandeur,  and 
the  Tao  is  at  once  the  impersonal  root  of  the  universe  and 
the  living  tide  of  freedom,  power,  love. 

"  The  Way  that  can  be  spoken  is  not  the  Eternal  Way, 
The  Name  that  can  be  named  is  not  the  Eternal  Name. 
Nameless,  the  Way  is  the  source  of  heaven  and  earth,  — 
Named,  it  is  the  Mother  of  all  beings  : 

He  that  is  free  from  selfish  desires  shall  behold  it  in  the  spirit  ; 

He  that  is  possessed  by  passions,  in  the  outward  form  alone.  — 
And  those  two  are  one  in  substance,  though  differing  in  name  ; 
Depth  and  the  depth  of  depths  :  the  entrance  to  all  spiritual  life."  2 

"  The  Way  that  cannot  be  named  is  the  beginning  and 
The"Un-  ground  of  heaven  and  earth."  Here  is  one  to 


"  whom  the  world  is  not  mere  flow  of  phenomena, 

Substance 

of  the        or   process   of   self-evolution,  but   real   substance  ; 
without  which  indeed  there  were  nothing  to  "  pro- 

1  Shu-king,  Pt.  II.  ii.  15. 

8  Tao-te-king,  ch.  I    Maximus  Tyrius,  Diss.,  XXXVIII. 


LAO-TSE.  869 

ceed  '•  or  be  "  evolved  ;  "  to  whom  the  very  endlessness  of 
its  changes  involved  unity,  stability,  infinite  being,  as  their 
inexhaustible  ground  and  perennial  source,  without  which 
they  must  come  to  nought.  And  though  this  substance 
can  in  no  possible  way  be  revealed  to  man  as  it  is,  and  he 
can  only  affirm  its  transcendence  to  all  persons,  names,  and 
forms,  perceiving  at  least  with  certainty  that  it  is,  —  yet 
even  this  sense  of  its  reality,  however  impalpable,  is  so  far 
from  being  a  phantasm  of  the  thinking  faculty,  that  'tis  it 
alone  which  conditions  reverence  for  the  true  and  real  as 
such,  the  substance  of  the  most  concrete  human  virtue. 
No  other  interpretation  deals  fairly  with  the  "  Tao  "  of  the 
passage  just  quoted.  Through  such  abstraction  of  pure 
reality  as  infinite  and  eternal  do  we  come  to  hold  truth 
and  duty,  ideas  and  principles,  venerable  ;  and  life  itself  as 
no  passing  shadow,  but  consubstantial  with  these  fathom- 
less realities.  We  may  call  the  universal  substance  "  non- 
existent," since  it  is  itself  the  ground  of  all  existences, 
while  not  definable  by  any  ;  yet  is  it  inseparable  from  man 
and  Nature  :  and  we  misuse  language  when  we  speak  of  it 
as  before  time  or  beyond  space,  as  entering  or  leaving  the 
human  soul. 

Thus  Lao-tse  describes  it  as  through  the  ages  an  all-sus- 
taining providential  care,1  yet  veiling  its  path  and  Itsimma_ 
subduing  its  glory,  parading  no  strength,  seeking  nent,  yet 
no  praise,  with  no  motive  beyond  a  spontaneous  JJJ^* 
love.2     A  serene  and  still  movement  of  resistless 


power,  working  as  one  that  works  not,  without  haste 
or  striving  for  effect,  withholding  its  own  sway  that  man's 
obedience  may  be  free,  and  he  be  ruled  only  through 
his  own  nature,  not  by  imperial  edict  or  personal  will.3 
This  is  the  mystery  of  virtue.4  By  what  resembles  this 
in  himself  man  knows  himself  a  child  of  the  Eternal  Way, 

1   Tao-te-king,  chs.  xiv.,  xxi.,  xxxiv.  2  Ibid.,  chs.  xl.,  li.,  iv. 

8  Ibid.,  chs   xxxvii.,  Ixxiii.,  xxxiv.,  li.  *  Ibid.,  ch.  li. 


8;o 


BELIEFS. 


and  finds  his  true  life.1  The  Tao  of  the  saint  is  in 
claiming  no  greatness,  and  so  achieving  greatness ;  in 
ruling  men  by  love  and  service ;  in  simplicity  and  one- 
ness with  himself ;  in  the  self-knowledge  and  self-reliance 
that  have  learned  to  trust  the  invisible  laws  ;  in  tender 
regard  for  the  freedom  of  others,  intermeddling  only  to 
open,  never  to  close  or  clog,  their  path.2  He  renders 
good  for  evil,  and  regards  wrong-doers  as  placed  in  his 
safe-keeping.3  With  his  own  lot  and  sphere  he  stands  in 
right  accord.4  His  witness  is  the  universal  in  his  own 
The  in-  being  and  its  relations  :  it  is  law  and  love  in  their 
ward  wit-  widest  significance  as  the  order  of  the  world.  His 
assurance  of  immortality  comes  from  knowing 
what  is  imperishable ;  from  fulfilling  the  purposes  of  living ; 
from  returning,  childlike,  to  the  Way  which  is  Life.5 

To  these  foundations  in  personal  liberty  and  spiritual 
summons  law  Lao-tse  recalls  the  State.  Not  by  the  many 

State     who  follow  show/ or  measure  effect  by  numbers  or 

to  recog-  J 

nize  spirit-  by  institutions,  but  by  the  few  who  are  committed 
desalT  to  the  substance,  is  the  nation  upheld.6  Not  by 
laws.  trying  to  make  the  impartial  laws  patrons  of  one's 
private  interests,  but  by  controlling  one's  ambitious  desires, 
is  success  possible.7  Not  by  one  who  presses  and  suffocates 
men  by  his  much  doing  and  managing,  but  by  one  who  is 
content  with  being,  and  with  the  unforced  processes  of  real 
growth,  are  the  people  advanced.8  In  these  senses  it  is 
only  the  action  that  desires  to  forbear  action,  it  is  only  the 
virtue  of  powers  whose  first  care  is  to  leave  the  powers  of 
others  free,  that  can  turn  private  conduct  into  public 
service,  and  befriend  mankind.9 


Tao-te-king,  ch.  lii. 

Ibid.,  chs.  xxxiv.,  vii.,  viii ,  Ixviii.,  Ixxxi.,  xxvii.,  xxiii.,  xxxiii.,  xlvii.,  Ixiv.,  li. 

Ibid.,  chs.  xxvii.,  Ixiii. 

Ibid.,  ch.  xlvi.  •  Ibid.,  chs.  xvi.,  lii.  6  Ibid.,  chs.  xxxviii.,  Ixvii. 

Ibid.,  chs.  i.,  v.,  Ixiv.  «  Ibid.,  chs.  xlviii.,  Ivii  ,  Iviii.,  xxxiv. 

Ibid.,  chs.  Jxiii.,  Ixiv. 


LAO-TSE. 

Unmistakable  signs  betray  the  civilization  that  has  ig- 
nored this  dependence  of  the  mass  on  the  spirit,  signs  of 
and  fed  on  the  shadow  instead  of  the  substance.  Publi^de- 

morahza- 

Men  have  lost  all  centre  in  themselves,  mechanized  tion. 
by  incessant  interference  and  oversight  ; 1  and  the  virtues 
themselves  become  but  an  inflated  currency  of  phrases  that 
do  not  even  promise  to  pay  the  values  they  parade.  A 
dead-weight  of  prescriptions  and  conformities  has  fore- 
closed the  genius  of  the  young,  and  hardened  the  faces  of 
the  elders  against  sentiment  and  faith.  In  this  way  it  is 
that  men  come  to  have  "  virtue  "  after  they  have  lost  all 
knowledge  of  the  Right  Way ;  to  have  "  humanity  "  after 
they  have  lost  virtue;  and  "equity"  after  they  have  lost 
humanity  ;  and  "  propriety,"  after  they  have  lost  equity.2 
These  boasted  virtues  become  proofs  of  hypocrisy  and  signs 
of  dissolution.3  It  is  an  everlasting  law  that  the  simple 
should  be  taught  by  those  who  can  refrain  from  over- 
teaching  ;  that  the  nation  should  be  led  "  by  those  who  will 
bear  its  burdens,  and  can  endure  its  reproach. " 4  But 
when  a  State  substitutes  false  for  true  subordinations,  its 
government  and  social  order  are  subversive,  at  war  with 
the  heavens  and  the  earth. 

The  summons  of  the  Tao-te-king  is  for  all  time.  Despot- 
ism or  republic ;  equalities  democratic  or  patriarchal ;  The  state 
human  nature  levelled  and  squared  into  formulas,  cannotbe 

1  manu- 

whether  by  endless  law-making  in  the  name  of  self-  factured." 
government,  by  royal  edicts,  or  by  traditions  never  retested 
nor  freely  chosen,  —  the  process  is  one  and  the  same.  The 
State,  says  Lao-tse,  is  "  a  spiritual  vessel,  and  cannot 
be  manufactured."6  The  invisible  substance  of  liberty  and 
service  rejected,  there  comes  the  all-dissolving  frenzy  of 
corrupt  competition,  popular  delusion  and  misery  amidst 
whatsoever  smartness  and  shrewdness,  and  the  desolations 

1   Tao-te-king,  ch.  Ivii.  2  Ibid.,  ch.  xxxvili.  8  Ibid.,  ch.  xviii. 

*  Ibid.,  chs.  xxxvii.,  xlviii.,  Ixxviii.  6  Ibid.,  ch.  xxix. 


8/2  BELIEFS. 

of  civil  war  in  which  power  goes  to  the  strongest  hand.1 
"  Large  and  open  are  the  meshes  of  heaven,  but  none  can 
escape  them."  2 

When,  in  times  of  national  history  such  as  are  here  de- 
Lao-tse's  scri°ed>  a  prophet  strikes  at  that  inveterate  self- 
political  conceit  which  makes  reformation  impossible  ;  when 
he  must  reject  the  very  names  of  virtues  because 
they  stand  only  for  paint  on  the  face  of  death,  —  it  is  no 
wonder  that  his  word  appears  to  other  times  and  races  all 
the  more  strangely  destructive  for  the  very  energy  of  his 
appeal  to  the  bare  tests  of  a  lofty  righteousness  and  truth. 
But  here  is  briefly  his  political  gospel :  - 

The  great  should  become  lowly  (Ixi.). 

Long  indeed  have  men  been  sunk  in  delusion  (Iviii.). 

The  more  kings  multiply  prohibitions  and  penal  statutes,  the  poorer 
become  the  people  (Ivii.,  liii.). 

Learn  how  to  refrain  from  doing,  and  let  the  people  of  themselves 
find  the  right  way.  Let  them  alone,  that  they  may  have  a  mind  for 
good  (Ivii.). 

Why  did  the  ancients  honor  this  right  way  ?  Was  it  not  because  it  is 
found  by  force  of  nature,  without  long  searching  ?  Was  it  not  because 
by  means  of  it  wrong-doers  obtain  (true)  liberty  and  life  ?  (Ixii.) 

Wonderful  indeed  is  this  clear  summons  to  principles 
which  the  best  modern  governments  have  not  yet  accepted 
nor  pursued,  —  amidst  Chinese  pedagogy  and  police,  six 
centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  and  in  the  name  of  the 
eternal  rights  of  personal  virtue  and  freedom  ! 

So  much  of  general  outline  seemed  needful,  to  place  this 
Chinese  nonconformist  in  the  light  of  those  relations  by 
which  he  should  be  measured  and  judged,  and  which  most 
of  his  interpreters  have  thoroughly  ignored. 

I  proceed  to  offer  such  extracts  from  the  Tao-te-king  as 
will  convey  its  substantial  meaning  ;  though  no  analysis 
could  do  justice  to  the  delicacy  and  beauty  of  its  transi- 

1  Ibid.,  chs.  xx.,  liii.,  Ixxv.,  xxx.,  Ixv.  2  Ibid.,  ch.  Ixxiii. 


> 


THE   TAO-TE-KING. 

lions,  which  is  not  a  practical  reproduction  of  the  whole. 
Obscure  as  the  connection  of  his  compact  aphorisms  rnaj- 
seem,  Lao-tse  incessantly  recurs  to  his  central  idea  of  the 
Eternal  Way,  and  again  and  again  develops  from  it  the 
laws  of  personal  character  and  public  duty. 

I.    A  depth,  whose  void  all  uses  are  not  vast  enough  to  fill  !     How 
still  and  pure,  as  if  the  Eternal  were  indeed  there  !  l     Before    L  The 
all  beings,  before  Shangte  (God).     To  whom  shall  we  trace  as    Eternal 
a  son   the  Father  of  all  ?  (iv.)     A  depth  of  soul,  imperish-   Way 
able  ;  2  mystery  of  Motherhood  ;  root  of  heaven  and  earth.     He  that 
worketh  through  it  shall  not  be  weary  (vi.). 

We  see  it  not,  yet  we  know  it  ;  hear  it  not,  yet  perceive  it  ;  touch  it 
not,  yet  embrace  it.3  Alike  beyond  conception,  these  three  (aspects) 
are  one  :  nameless,  escaping  us  into  the  void,  it  is  past  finding  out.  If 
you  go  before  it,  you  see  not  its  face  ;  if  behind,  you  see  not  its  back. 
So  to  trace  its  working  in  oldest  times  as  to  guide  the  present  by  its 
light,  is  to  hold  the  clew  of  Tao  (xiv.). 

Impalpable,  yet  containing  the  forms  of  things  ;  impenetrable,  yet 
the  abode  of  beings  ;  dark,  yet  within  itself  a  spiritual  substance. 
And  this  subtance  is  truth,  and  its  witness  sure.  From  the  days  of 
old  till  now  never  has  the  Name  of  Tao  failed,  nor  its  creative  work 
ceased.  Whence  know  I  that  things  have  this  origin  ?  By  Tao 
itself  (xxi.). 

Immaterial,  unchangeable,  all-pervading,  unwearied  :  I  have  no 
name  for  it.  If  I  would  speak  of  it,  I  call  it  Tao.4  If  I  must  give  it 
a  name,  I  can  only  say,  "  It  is  great."  In  the  world  are  four  that  are 
great,  and  the  king  is  one  o(  these.  His  law  is  from  the  earth  ;  the 
law  of  earth  is  from  heaven  ;  the  law  of  heaven  is  from  Tao  ;  but  the 
law  of  Tao  is  from  itself  alone  (xxv.). 

Everywhere  it  reacheth,  on  the  right  and  on  the  left.  All  beings 
wait  on  it  for  life,  and  it  refuses  none.5  When  its  work  is  done,  it 
claims  it  not  as  its  own.  It  loves  and  supports  all  beings,  but  lords 

1  Cf.  Chung-yung  (XII.)  ;  "The  tao  of  the  wise  reaches  far,  yet  is  secret." 

2  Literally,  "the  spirit  of  the  valley  dies  not." 

3  Ji-hi-wei  are  the  three  words  by  which  Lao-tse  here  additionally  describes  the  spiritual 
qualities  of  the  Tao.     Their  origin  ind  meaning  are  yet  to  be  determined.     Remusat  and  Von 
Strauss  think  they  are  mere  sounds,  representing  the  syllables  of  the  word  Jehovah,  derived  by 
Lao-tse  from  Hebrew  sources!     Julien  rejects  this,  and  translates,  "  smooth,  little,  fine;  "  but 
the  dictionaries  indicate  a  more  abstract  meaning. 

*  '•  Thou  art  the  Way  by  which  all  creatures  go."  (Ramayana.) 

5  "  The  eyes  of  all  look  unto  thee,  and  thou  givest  them  their  meat  indue  season." 


8/4  BELIEFS. 

over  none.  In  Tao  is  no  eager  desire.  It  is  permitted  to  call  it  in- 
significant. All  beings  return  to  it,  and  it  lords  not  over  them.  Great 
is  it,  and  the  holy  man  who  claims  no  greatness  achieves  it  (xxxiv). 

The  movement  of  Tao  is  return  (into  itself). 

Its  force  is  in  weakness.  All  existence  is  from  being;  being 
Laws  of  springs  from  nought  (xl.).  For  ever  is  it  (Tao)  without 
develop-  doing,  yet  leaves  nothing  undone  (xxxvii.).  l  • 

From  Tao  comes  the  One ;  from  the  One,  Two  ;  from 
Two,  Three  ;  from  Three  are  all  things.  For  all  things  are  included 
in  rest  and  motibn  (Yin  and  Yang)  and  the  spirit  of  Nature  (Khi),  by 
which  these  are  made  one  (xlii.). 

All  things  are  born  of  Tao  ;  by  its  power  upheld,  by  its  substance 
Of  Provi-  formed,  by  its  forces  perfected.  Therefore  of  all  beings 
dence.  there  is  none  but  reveres  Tao,  and  honors  its  virtue.2  And 
this  is  not  by  command  of  any,  but  by  free  force  of  Nature.  For  Tao 
produces,  sustains,  shapes,  ripens,  guards,  and  covers  them  with  its 
power.  To  produce  and  yet  take  no  possession  ;  to  act,  yet  take  no 
claim  ;  to  enlarge,  yet  not  control,  —  this  is  the  mystery  of  Virtue  (li.). 

The  origin  of  the  world  is  the  mother  of  all.  Whoso  has  found  his 
Life  in  mother  knows  himself  to  be  a  child  ;  and  knowing  this,  and 
Tao-  returning  to  his  mother,  though  the  body  perish,  shall  not  be 

harmed  (lii.). 

Tao  is  the  refuge  of  all  beings  ;  the  treasure  of  the  good  ;  the 
redeemer  of  the  wicked.  Why  did  the  ancients  so  honor  Tao,  but  be- 
cause by  seeking  it  can  be  found,  and  forgives  those  who  have  done  ill  ? 
Therefore,  of  all  things  most  precious  is  the  Everlasting  Way  (Ixii.). 

The  life  of  Tao  is  spread  abroad  as  brooks  and  rivers  become 
floods  and  seas  (xxxii.).  3 

The  way  of  Heaven  is  like  the  way  of  one  who  stretches  a  bow  ; 

Sovereignty  bringing  down  the  lofty,   lifting  up  the  depressed  ;  taking 

of  spiritual  from  those  that  have  too  much,  and  giving  to  those  that  have 

not  enough.     The  way  of  men  is   opposite  to  this  (Ixxvii.). 

1  The  analogy  with  Hegel's  theses  of  the  development  of  the  Idea,  in  itself  and  for  itself; 
of  the  logic  of  the  movement  of  the  Spirit,  and  of  progress  as  the  identity  of  being  and  nought, 
—  is  obvious.  The  German  philosopher  has  formulated  for  the  West  the  same  conceptions  which 
are  here  instinctive  and  intuitive  in  the  East-  Lao-tse  combines  with  them  a  profoundly  religious 
spirit,  and  a  sense  of  personal  liberty  through  cognition  of  the  universal,  as  rare  as  it  is  admi- 
rable. To  these  he  perpetually  recurs,  never  forgetting  their  practical  authority  and  interest,  in 
his  deepest  metaphysic.  To  give  these  their  full  development  is  no  less  than  the  "  mystery  of 
the  Virtue  of  Tao"  itself. 

"  As  the  birds  to  a  tree,  so  all  beings  repair  to  the  Supreme  Soul"  (Prasna  Upanishad\ 
"Eternal  Brahma,  end  of  fear,  refuge,"  &c.,  (Katha  Upanishad,*). 

8  Cf.  Ecclesiastic^  XXIV.  31,  32. 


THE   TAO-TE-KING.  8/5 

Heavenly  Tao  has  no  favorites  ;  yet  is  it  ever  bounteous  to  the 
good  (Ixxix.). 

It  blunts  its  sharpness,  strews  from  its  fulness ;  tempers  its 
splendor,  becomes  one  with  its  dust  (iv.). 

In  its  simplicity  so  infantile,  yet  the  whole  world  dares  not  make 
it  subservient  (xxxii.).  Its  simplicity  brings  freedom  from  craving, 
and  this  brings  rest ;  and  the  world  hastes  of  itself  to  righteous- 
ness (xxxvii.).1 

Hold  fast  to  its  great  Form  (idea),  and  the  world  shall  come  to 
you.  It  shall  come  and  find  no  evil ;  only  peace  and  rest  and  joy. 
When  Tao  comes  forth  from  the  mouth,  it  hath  no  savor ;  neither  sat- 
isfies it  the  eye  nor  ear ;  but  of  its  resources  there  shall  be  found  no 
end  (xxv.). 

Striving  not,  it  is  master  ;  speaking  not,  it  is  answered  ;  calling  not, 
men  come  to  it  of  themselves  ;  patient  and  slow,  but  its  plan  is  wis- 
dom ;  its  net  has  wide  meshes,  but  nought  escapes  it  (Ixxiii.). 

II.  Whoso  is  without  craving  desires  shall  behold  this  spirit,  in 
substance,  not  in  form  alone  (i.).      Things  are  known  by  n  Person. 
their  contraries,  and  suggest  each  other  :  being  and  nought,  alcharac- 
heavy  and  light,  long  and  short,  before  and  after.    So  the  ac-  ter- 
tion  of  the  best  man'2  is  as  if  he  acted  not.     His  teaching  is  by  life, 
not  by  words.     All  beings  move.     He  withholds  not  himself. 
He  fulfils  virtue,  but  he  claims  no  praise  (ii.).     Heaven  and  contraries: 
earth  endure,   because  they  live /not  for  themselves  (iv.).3  Least  is 
So  the  holy  man  makes  himself  less  than  others,  and  becomes  sreatest* 
the  first  (vii.).4     His  goodness  is  like  water, — a  good  to  all;  which 
contends  not,  but  goes  to  the  low  places  that  men  despise.     Like  the 
Tao,  striving  not  for  itself,  it  makes  no  foes  (viii.,  xxii.).     Better  leave 
alone,  than  try  to  grasp  and  fill  at  once.      A  good  thing  accomplished 
that  will  bring  him  applause,  he  takes  himself  away  (ix.). 

What  is  bent  shall  be  straightened  ;  the  empty  is  that  which  can  be 
filled.  So  he  who  displays  not  himself  shall  shine  ;  he  who  Substance 
exalts  not  himself  shall  be  exalted  (xxii.).  True  goodness  and  show, 
is  good,  because  it  does  not  show  for  goodness,  makes  no  account  of 
mere  doing  ;  half  goodness  does  merely  for  the  sake  of  doing.  True 
humanity  acts,  yet  not  for  the  sake  of  acting.  But  justice  is  obliged 

1  Cf.  Max.  Tyrins  (Diss.  xl.),  "  O  Laws  more  ancient  than  laws,  O  legislation  more  mild 
than  legislators,  to  which  he  who  willingly  submits  himself  is  rich  and  free." 

2  Shing-jin,  the  complete  man. 

3  So  Julien  and  Strauss;  Chalmers  reads,  "because  of  their  not  aiming  at  life." 
*  "  He  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted." 


8/6  BELIEFS. 

both  to  act  and  to  take  account  of  the  action.  Propriety  acts  ;  and  if 
not  respected,  it  has  to  stretch  out  its  arm  and  compel  respect.  So 
things  go  on.  Losing  Tao  (reason  as  natural),  men  fall  back  on  their 
goodness  ;  thatslost,  on  their  philanthropy  ;  that  lost,  on  their  (regula- 
tions of)  justice  ;  and  then  on  rites  of  propriety.  This  is  but  the  peel 
of  virtue  ;  the  beginning  of  insanity.  This  wisdom  of  pretension  is 
but  the  flaunting  show  of  Tao  and  the  beginning  of  folly.  Hold  fast 
to  the  substance,  and  leave  show ;  abide  by  the  fruit,  and  let  the 
flower  pass  (xxxviii.). 

The  hard  and  strong  are  signs  of  death  ;  the  yielding  and  weak, 
of  life  and  growth.  When  the  tree  has  become  strong  it  is  felled. 
The  great  and  forceful  go  under ;  the  tender  and  feeble  ascend 
(Ixxvi.,  lv.).  The  hollow  part  of  things  makes  them  useful :  the  hub  of 
the  wheel,  the  inside  of  the  jar,  the  windows  of  the  house.  Their  part 
in  being  is  for  gain,  but  their  part  in  non-being  is  for  use  (xi.)-  The 
five  colors  blind  the  eye ;  the  five  sounds  deafen  the  ear ;  the  five 
tastes  will  spoil  the  mouth.  Riding  and  hunting  befool  men,  and 
things  hard  to  attain  pervert  their  ways.  Therefore  the  true  man's 
sphere  is  his  heart,  not  his  eyes  (xii.).  Rest  is  the  lord  of  motion. 
The  true  man,  in  his  daily  work,  never  swerves  from  a  quiet  and 
serious  mood  (xxvi.). 

The  true  leader  is  not  fond  of  war  ;  the  skilful  soldier  is  not  wrath- 
Strength  ful-  He  who  strives  not  shall  overcome.  He  who  serves 
in  not  men  shall  be  their  master.  This  is  accord  with  Heaven  ; 
5tnvmg.  t|ie  greatness  Of  the  men  Of  old  (ixviii.).  He  who  stands  on 
tiptoe  stands  not  firm  ;  straining  the  limbs  is  not  making  progress 
(xxiv.).  The  wise  of  old  were  deep,  and  hard  to  be  made  known. 
Timid,  like  one  who  fords  a  winter  stream  ;  circumspect,  like  one  who 
is  from  home ;  evanescent,  like  melting  ice  ;  simple,  like  unwrought 
wood  ;  empty,  like  a  valley  ;  opaque,  like  troubled  water.  He  who 
possesses  Tao  seeks  not  to  be  filled  (xv.).  Silent  teaching,  the  might 
of  quietness,  few  there  are  that  attain  (xlii.).1  Let  thy  doing  be  as  not 
doing  ;  thy  labor  as  not  labor  ;  thy  taste,  that  which  is  without  savor  : 
thy  great  the  little,  thy  many  the  few.2  Recognize  the  difficult  in 
things,  and  they  shall  be  found  easy  (Ixiii.). 

He  that  meddles,  mars  ;  he  that  grasps,  loses.  If  men  regarded 
Self-  the  end  as  they  do  the  beginning,  there  would  be  no  failure, 

restraint.  Hence,  the  true  man's  desire  is  not  to  feed  his  desires,  and 
not  to  seek  great  things.3  He  aims  to  help  all  men  to  their  freedom, 

1  Confucius,£«;/.yw,  XVII.  19. 

2  So  Von  Strauss  translates.    Julien  says,  "  Great  and  small,  many  and  few,  are  equal  in 
the  saint's  eyes."  3  M.  Aurelius. 


THE    TAO-TE-KING.  8// 

and  is  careful  not  to  intermeddle  therewith  by  overdoing  (Ixiv.).     Who 
knows  others,  is  sharp  ;  who  knows  himself,  is  enlightened.1     Who 
masters  others  is  strong  ;  who  masters  himself  is  the  hero.    Who  has 
content  is  rich.     Who  goes  forward  boldly  has  will.     Who  leaves  not 
his  own  place  shall  endure  (xxxiii.).     The  world  may  be  known  with- 
out leaving  one's  door.    To  behold  the  heavenly  way,  no  need    self- 
of  peering  out  of  the  window.2     The  further  one  goes  (from    reliance, 
himself)  the  less  shall  he  know  (xlvii.). 

Forsake  your  much  learning,  and  be  free  from  annoy.  'Twixt  aye 
and  yea,  what  is  there  to  choose  ?  'Twixt  good  and  evil,  how  vast  the 
gulf  !  But  the  frenzy  will  not  cease  (with  men).  How  full  they  all 
are  !  I  alone  so  empty,  so  befooled,  so  befogged,  where  all  are  so 
knowing  ;  so  good  for  nothing,  where  all  are  so  smart  in  doing  !  I 
alone  am  different  from  others  ;  but  I  adore  the  all-sustaining  Mother 
(xx.). 

The  ancients  said :  "  The  bright  in  Tao  are  as  darkness  ;  the  ad- 
vanced in  Tao  as  those  that  go  back  ;  the  firm  in  right  as  one  who 
has  no  strength  ;  the  true  in  faith  as  base  and  vile.  Loud  is  that 
voice  which  is  not  heard.  Great  the  image  whose  form  is  not  seen" 
(xli.).  The  wise  can  be  silent :  the  talker  is  not  wise.  Shut  the  lips  ; 
close  the  doors  ;  blunt  the  sharpness  ;  soften  the  glare  ;  become  of  the 
dust  —  this  is  to  be  one  with  Tao.  Inaccessible  to  bribes  as  to  ter- 
rors, to  profit  or  disaster,  exaltation  or  disgrace,  —  such  an  one  has  the 
world's  respect  (Ivi.). 

On  them  who  feel  no  fear  of  what  ought  to  be  feared  shall  fall  that 
which  is  most  fearful.    Let  none  find  his  dwelling  too  narrow,    Respect 
his  life  too  cramped.     It  is  not  too  narrow,  if  they  do  not    forone's 
think  it  so  (Ixxii.).     My  words  are  easy  to  read  and  follow  ;    for  one,g 
yet  none  can  know  or  practise  them.     Few  know  me  :    I  am    self, 
the  more  honored.3    Therefore  the  wise  will  wear  coarse  garments,  and 
hide  his  jewels  in  his  bosom  (Ixx.).4    Which  is  nearest  you,  your  name 
or  your  person  ?     Which  is  most  to  you,  your  person  or  your  posses- 
sions ?  (xliv.) 5     He  who  subjects  the  animal  to  the  spiritual  becomes 
one  with  himself,  and  even  a  child.6     If  he  makes  his  inward  sight 
clear  and  pure,  his  failings  shall  pass  away.     Let  the  doors  of  Heaven 
be  open  or  shut,  he  can  dwell  like  the  female  bird  in  the  nest.     His 
clear  insight  shall  dispense  with  toiling  to  know  (x.).7 

Socrates.  2  Julien  puts  these  sentences  in  the  first  person. 

So  Julien  ;  Strauss  says,  "So  far  am  I  esteemed;"  Chalmers,  "  Worthy  they  that 
copy  me." 

"  Cast  not  your  pearls  before  swine."  8  "  Is  not  the  life  more  than  meat  ? " 

"  Except  ye  become  as  little  children,  ye  shall  not  enter,"  &c. 

"  He  who  is  free  from  desire  beholds  by  tranquillity  of  the  senses  the  majesty  of  the 
soul."  (Kaiha  Upanishad.) 


878  BELIEFS. 

The  force  of  an  intant  is  in  its  harmony  with  itself:  the  knowledge 
Inward  °^  narrnony  is  everlasting  (lv.).  Whoso  has  wholly  ceased 
harmony  from  self  shall  find  immovable  rest.  Things  that  have  re- 
andrest.  turned  to  their  root,  and  fulfilled  their  purpose,  are  still. 
They  become  everlasting.  To  know  the  everlasting  is  light  ;  not  to 
Union  know  it  is  to  work  one's  own  misery.  He  who  knows  the 
withTao.  eternal  becomes  universal:  being  just,  he  is  a  king  ;  being 
a  king,  he  is  Heaven  ;  being  Heaven,  he  is  Tao ;  being  Tao,  endur- 
ing ;  though  his  body  die,  he  knows  no  harm  (xvi.).1  He  who  holds  to 
what  is  of  man  and  of  woman  in  himself,  is  the  world's  channel.  He 
who  knows  that  which  is  light  in  himself,  and  views  himself  as  in  the 
shade,  .is  the  world's  model.  He  who  knows  his  dignity,  and  keeps 
his  humility,  is  the  valley  of  the  empire  ;  2  virtue  shall  fill  him  ;  to 
childlike  simplicity  shall  he  return  (xxviii.).  Whoso  is  in  accord  with 
Tao  is  one  with  Tao  ;  he  is  one  with  virtue,  as  the  corrupt  with  cor- 
ruption. To  lack  faith  is  to  find  none  (xxiii.).3 

As  for  me,  three  treasures  do  I  prize.  The  first  is  compassion  ; 
The  three  the  second,  frugality;  the  third,  humility.  When  Heavenr 
treasures,  would  save,  it  surrounds  with  compassion  (Ixvii.).  The 
good  has  no  rigid  heart ;  of  the  hearts  of  all  the  people  he  builds  his 
own.4  The  good  should  be  treated  with  goodness,  —  also  the  evil;  the 
upright,  uprightly  ;  also  the  insincere.  To  the  saint,  all  are  his  chil- 
dren (xlix.).  He  takes  care  of  his  own  part  of  his  contract,  and  insists 
not  on  that  of  his  neighbor.  He  attends  only  to  his  promises,  not  to 

.  his  claims  (Ixxix.).  He  who  knows  his  (true)  life  shall  fear 
mortal  no  w'ld  beast ;  nor  needs  armor  in  the  armed  host.  The 
armor  of  rhinoceros  finds  no  place  for  his  horn,  nor  the  tiger  for  his 
sincerity  claw,  nor  the  weapon  for  its  point.  He  has  no  mortal  part 
(I.).6  Faithful  words  are  not  fine.  Fine  words  are  not  faith- 
ful. The  good  is  not  skilled  in  fine  speeches.  The  knowing  is  not  the 
wise,  nor  the  wise  the  knowing.  The  saint  hoards  not.  The  more  he 
gives  to  men,  the  more  he  hath.  This  is  the  tao  of  Heaven,  —  to 
bless,  not  harm.  This  the  tao  of  the  good,  —  to  act  and  not  strive 
(Ixxxi.). 

"  When  He  is  known  as  the  nature  of  every  thought,  then  immortality  is  known." 
(Vedania.}  "Those  who  know  the  Supreme  Brahma  become  even  Brahma."  (Ibid.) 
"  Drops  mingling  with  the  sea  will  all  become  the  sea ;  so  souls  when  blent  with  God, 
themselves  will  God  then  be."  (Angelus  Silesius  )  See  also  Oriental  Religions,  India,  on 
meaning  of  "  knowledge"  in  the  East,  pp.  333-335. 

2  That  is,  Where  the  streams  gather  their  waters         s  "  To  lose  it  altogether"  (Julien). 

4  So  Strauss;  Julien  reads,  "Adopts  the  belief  of  the  people,"  which  does  not  seem  ac- 
cording to  the  context. 

"They  shall  take  up  serpents,  and  if  they  drink  any  deadly  thing,  it  shall  not  harm 
them."  (Mark  xvi.  18.) 


THE   TAO-TE-KING.  8/9 

III.  The  best  man  is  the  best  ruler,  if  he  undertakes  to  govern.    For 
his  government  is  by  greatness  of  mind,  and  harms  none    jn    True 
(xxviii.).     To  him  all  the  people  turn  their  eyes  and  ears,    govern- 
They  are  all    his  children  (xlix.).1     Alas,   that  a  prince  of    ment»  by 
myriad  chariots  should  rule  with  levity,  and  fling  away  his 
throne  !  (xxvi.). 

Because  the  great  waters  lie  lower  than  the  streams,  they  make 
these  subject ;  so  he   who  would   rule   the   people  will  put   Rule 
himself  beneath  them.     He  will  not   burden   them    (Ixvi.). 
Of  all  things  the  most  yielding,  is  water;    yet  nothing  is 
hard  enough  to  withstand  it.    The  weak  masters  the  strong  ;    service, 
the  gentle,  the  hard.     Who  knows  this  not  ?     Yet  none  can  follow  it. 
Therefore  is  it  said  by  the  wise,  "  Whoso  bears  the  nation's  shame 
stands  at  its  head.     Who  bears  the  sorrows  of  the  land  becomes  its 
king."      This    is  not  more  strange  than  true    (Ixxviii.).      Heap   not 
praises  on  the  wisest,  lest  men  quarrel  (for  the  fame).     Glorify  not 
goods  hard  to  get,  and  men  will  not  steal.     By  not  gazing  on  alluring 
things,  the  heart  will  be  at  peace.      Wise  government  is    Throu  h 
therefore  to  make  the  heart  void  (of  craving),   to  fill  the    repressing 
inward  part  (with  good),  to  control  the  wills,  to  make  strong    selfish 
the  bones  (substance).     (In  these  respects)  one  will  seek  to    cravms- 
make  the  people  ignorant  and  without  desire,  and  to  bring  to  inaction 
those  who  know   (those   allurements).2     This  done,  government   is 
complete  (Hi.).     It"  rulers  would  follow  the  Way  that  works  as  if  it 
worked  not,  all  beings  would  of  themselves  become  transformed.     If 
they  resisted,   I  would  show  them  the  simplicity  that  is   beyond  all 
name  :  which  stills  all  passionate  craving,  so  that  the  world  comes  of 
itself  to  do  aright   (xxxvii.).      Of  kings  in  old  time,  the  people  only 
knew  that  they  were.    Then  they  came  to  admiring  and  praising  them; 
next  they  feared  them  ;  then  despised.     Men  yield  no  faith    Effects  of 
to  those  who  show  none  (xvii.).     The  great  Path  left,  came    forsaking 
(your)  "philanthropy"  and  "justice.*'     With  the  sharpening   ^°^a~ 
of  the  wits,  come  trickery  and  sham.     Discord  arising  in  the   virtuefor 
family,  comes  (the  law  of)  "  filial  piety."   "  Devoted  and  loyal  "    prescrip- 
people  are  a  sign  that  the  country  (itself)  is  in  disorder  and   tlon< 
decay  (xviii.).3 

1  "  Eyes  was  I  to  the  blind,  and  feet  to  the  lame.    Men  waited  for  me  as  for  the  latter  rain," 
&c.     (Jobxxix.) 

2  So  Strauss.   Julien,  following  commentators,  translates  literally,  as  if  Lao-tse  would  remand 
the  State  to  primitive  innocence  and  simplicity.     Chalmers  says,  "  Without  desire  of  evil ; " 
and  this  is  the  substance  of  all  the  versions  except  Planckner's,  who  regards  the  whole  as  a 
piece  of  satire,  a  quotation  from  the  speech  of  the  foolish  ! 

3  That  is,  "  The  call  for  examples  of  this  kind  is  a  sign."     Lao-tse  is  showing  that  what 


88O  BELIEFS. 

Leave  your  knowledge  ;  away  with  your  smartness  ;  and  the  people 
The  con-  w*^  ^e  a  hundred-fold  happier.  Let  alone  your  over-busy 
ceit  of  "  philanthropies  ;  "  away  with  your  (virtuosity  of)  "  justice," 
wisdom  and  the  people  will  return  to  natural  piety  and  fatherly  love, 
and vmue.  j)rop  vour  shrewdness  and  gainfulness,  and  thievery  will 
cease.  Be  not  satisfied  with  the  show  of  things  :  then  you  shall 
hold  the  substance.  Show  singleness  of  heart.  Suppress  greed,  and 
contract  ambition  (xix.).  The  wise  of  old  did  not  seek  to  render 
people  smart,  but  to  make  them  simple.  People  are  hard  to  govern, 
so  politic  are  they.  But  to  govern  them  by  their  sense  of  policy  is 
to  corrupt  them,  and  to  rule  without  it  is  to  be  a  blessing  to  the 
land  (Ixv.). 

This  incessant  knowing  heaps  up  more  and  more.  To  dwell  in  Tao 
is  to  come  to  repose  ;  to  do  nothing,  yet  accomplish  all.1  This  is  the 
path  to  the  throne.  He  whose  passion  is  to  be  always  doing  is  not 
fit  to  hold  it  (xlviii.). 

He  who  would  take  in  hand  to  make  the  State  shall  not  prosper. 
The  State  is  a  spiritual  vessel,  and  cannot  be  manufactured.  The 
The  State  meddler  mars  5  tne  grasper  loses  (xxix.).  Let  him  rule 
mined  by  the  empire  who  can  let  things  alone.  The  more  regulations, 
over-regu-  the  worse  off  the  people  ;  the  more  munitions,  the  more  wars  ; 
the  more  skill  in  making  things,  the  more  gewgaws  ;  the 
more  show  of  penalties,  the  more  rogues.  Therefore,  the  wise  man 
says,  "  I  will  be  quiet,  and  the  people  will  have  a  chance  to  improve 
themselves.  I  will  have  no  pet  schemes,  and  they  will  be  simple  of 
heart"  (Ivii.).  When  government  is  blind,  the  people  prosper.  When 
it  spies  and  supervises  every  thing,  they  are  wretched.  How  long  this 
cheating  them  of  their  proper  sight  has  endured  !  (Iviii.) 

If  I  were  wise  enough,  I  would  pursue  the  right  way ;  but  how  to 
bring  this  about?  The  right  way  is  plain,  but  men  prefer  by-ways. 
And  by  ^  tne  palaces  are  splendid,  the  field  shall  be  desolate,  the 
luxury,  granaries  empty.  To  wear  fine  clothes,  and  carry  sharp 
and  war.  swords,  and  be  filled  with  eating  and  drinking,  and  to  heap 
up  riches,  — that  I  call  splendid  robbery  (liii.).  Where  armies  have 
encamped,  grow  thorns  and  thistles.  On  great  campaigns  follow  great 
famines.  The  good  soldier  is  content  with  victory.  He  dares  do 
nothing  for  mere  love  of  mastery.  He  subdues,  but  is  not  lifted 
up.  (xxx.) 

causes  the  boast  or  claim  of  special  virtues  is  the  consciousness  of  self,  the  absence  of  spon- 
taneous goodness,  in  an  old  traditional  state  of  society  beset  by  formulas  and  prescriptions. 

1  This  illustrates  Lao-tse's  favorite  style  of  paradox,  produced  by  putting  the  ideal  against 
the  conventional  uses  of  words. 


THE    TAO-SSE.  88 1 

Let  not  the  larger  land  overpass  the  desire  to  unite  and  preserve 
mankind,  nor  the  smaller  land  the  desire  to  enter  the  service  Saved  by 
of  mankind.  That  both  may  attain  their  aims,  the  great  must  humanity, 
make  itself  the  least  (Ixi.). 

If  people  do  not  fear  death,  why  use  the  death-penalty  to  scare  them  ? 
And  if  the  people  are  kept  in  constant  fear  of  death,  and  I  seize  and 
slay  whenever  wrong  is  done,  who  will  keep  his  courage?  There  is 
the  great  Master  of  Punishments  '  He  who  assumes  his  part  is  like 
one  who  hews  out  the  work  of  the  carpenter ;  he  cuts  his  own  hand 
(Ixxiv.). 

A  little  State  in  a  narrow  land  might  be  so  ruled,  that  though  it  had 
but  arms  enough  for  a  hundred  men,  it  should  not  use  them.    A  model 
Its  people  should  love  to  live,  yet  should  stay  at  home  ;  they   State- 
should  return  to  the  knotted  cords  ;  their  food  should  be  sweet  to 
them ;  their  (rude)  clothes  fine,   their  homes  bright,  their  customs 
dear.     With  the  neighboring  land  so  near  them,  that  the  dogs  and 
cocks   could  be   heard,  yet   should   they  grow  old   and  die  without 
crossing  over  to  each  other's  homes  (Ixxx.). 


THE   TAO-SSE. 

"  ON  them  who  have  no  fear  of  what  should  be  feared, 
there  shall  fall  what  is  most  fearful."  This  was  Rise  of  the 
the  word  of  the  prophet  of  Tao  to  the  dissevered  Ta°-sse- 
States,  in  whose  mechanism  of  prescription  he  saw  the 
failure  of  free  personality,  that  saving  life  of  nations.  His 
unheeded  prediction  was  fulfilled  in  three  centuries  of  an- 
archy, ending  in  Chi-hwang-ti,  the  Napoleon  of  the  East, 
and  the  rule  of  the  strong  hand.  The  word-pretences  of 
"humanity  and  justice,"  that  Lao-tse  had  .pricked  with 
sharp  moral  insight,  were  given  to  fire  and  sword.  Whether 
the  tradition  be  true  or  not,  that  this  royal  Nemesis  him- 
self was  of  the  school  that,  in  the  name  of  Tao,  pursued 
earthly  immortality  by  means  of  elixirs  and  spells,  it  is 
certain  that  an  extensive  literature  of  such  superstitions 
had  already  associated  itself  with  the  Tao-te-king.  This 
work  was  spared  by  the  conqueror  from  his  holocaust  of 

1  That  is,  Heaven.     See  Julien,  from  the  commentators. 
56 


882  BELIEFS. 

letters,  doubtless  because  it  was  regarded  as  a  book  of 
divination  hostile  to  the  Confucian  school.  At  the  revival 
of  learning  the  productions  of  the  Tao-sse  had  amounted 
to  no  less  than  nine  hundred  and  ninety-three  volumes 
by  thirty-seven  authors.1  Of  the  ten  great  philosophers 
reckoned  as  subsequent  to  Confucius  and  before  the 
Christian  era,  at  least  the  half  were  of  this  sect.2  "  Few 
ages  have  passed  without  expositors  of  the  Tao-te-king, 
which  has  been  popular  among  reading  men  of  every 
denomination."  3 

The  "  Nameless  Void  "  became  indeed  the  "  Mother  of 

Their  use    Being."     While  the  self-secluded  thinker  was   so 

*"  withdrawn  within  its  veil  that  it  was  possible  to 

basis  for     make  him  the  centre  of  mythic  legends  imitative 

i  occult  °^  Buddhism,4  his  mystic  volume  opened  a  field  for 
studies.  the  freest  play  of  popular  imagination.  The  Tao- 
sse  have  been  the  mythologers  of  China.  From  them  came 
the  old  fables  of  Pwan-ku,  and  of  those  half-human  builders 
of  the  social  world  that  so  strongly  remind  us  of  Darwinian 
evolution.  Out  of  the  serene  contemplations  of  life  and 
death,  the  praise  of  powers  attainable  only  by  devout  con- 
secration, they  drew  a  visionary  alchemy  and  astrology, 
strange  prototypes  of  the  Mohammedan  and  the  Christian, 
which  some  suppose  to  have  been  their  products.5 

That  the  school  which  claims  Lao-tse  as  its  founder  has 
had  little  perception  of  his  belief,  is  as  plain  to  Chinese 
scholars  as  to  us.  Ma-tou-an-lin  says  of  the  Tao-te-king,  that 
"  its  true  spirit  was  ever  the  more  misunderstood  the  farther 
removed  men  were  from  its  day."  Chu-hi  says  that  moun- 

1  Parikou's  Catalogue.  2  Julien's  Introd.  to  Tao-te-king.  s  Wylie. 

4  Ko-hong  (fourth  century)  collected  these  legends  of  transmigrations  and  successive  incar- 
nations, or  in  part  invented  them.  Lao-tse  was  believed  to  have  written  nearly  a  thousand 
works,  among  them  the  Y-king  ;  to  have  been  the  guide  of  the  oldest  kings ;  and  to  have  come 
down  to  earth  from  the  Tao,  in  every  age  (Julien  ;  also  Williams,  II.  246).  Of  his  priority  to 
all  earthly  rulers,  and  precedence  of  all  other  teachers,  see  Bastian's  Peking,  pp.  48,  421,  468. 
Thus  the  Tao  asserts  its  everlasting  validity.  "  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am." 

•  Amer.  Or.  Journal,  Oct.,  1868 ;  Edkins,  Shanghai  Almanac,  1827;  Wylie,  p.  173. 


THE    TAO-SSE.  883 

tebanks  and  sorcerers  stole  the  name  of  Lao-tse  for  gain, 
comprehending  none  of  his  meaning.1  The  Sacred  Edict 
can  see  no  other  object  in  the  vain  talk  of  the  Tao-sse  than 
nourishing  the  animal  spirits  and  lengthening  out  life  for  a 
few  years.  The  Tao-sse,  however,  are  not  alone  in  their 
perversion  of  the  highest  fruits  of  spirituality  to  subserve 
a  longing  for  the  supernatural.  This  perversion  similar 
takes  essentially  the  same  forms,  and  with  strange  fner0vthTr°n 
persistence,  in  every  religion.  The  necromancy  of  religions. 
Christian  countries,  never  more  abundant  than  now,  has 
come  to  the  point  of  claiming  scientific  as  well  as  religious 
value,  still  centring,  as  in  the  East,  in  "spirit  intercourse." 
So  in  the  old  time,  Moses  fulminates  against  sorcerers  and 
consulters  of  spirits,  and  at  the  same  time  institutes  divi- 
nation by  Urim  and  Thummim,  and  makes  his  Jehovah 
as  subject  to  human  manipulation  as  Baal  or  Astarte.2 
Wherever  the  invisible  is  conceived  as  a  sphere  of  superior 
wills,  there  are  found  the  priest  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
trance-medium  on  the  other,  to  procure  knowledge  of  their 
purport.  The  modern  spiritist  protests  against  magic, 
yet  accepts  the  whole  substance  of  sorcery  in  the  Bible 
legend.3  Every  language  has  its  phrases  to  express  the 
idea  of  a  "  familiar  spirit,"  and  the  automatic  speech  of 
the  possessed. 

The  attractions  of  spiritual  genius  are  universal  ;  and 
a  book  like  the  Bible  or  the  Tao-te-king  becomes  a  Universal 
fetich  to  crude  stages  of  mind,  as  well  as  a  com-  magnetism 
panion  to  higher  ones.     Speaking  to  men  according  °f  Ritual 
to  their  capabilities,  it  gives  back  to  each  his  own  geniils- 
ideal  in  the  glory  of  that  authority  with  which  its  acknowl- 
edged mastership   is   clothed.     The  Tao-te-king  was   cer- 
tainly not    intended  to   subserve    such    a    school   as    the 

1  Schott,  pp.  28,  29. 

2  Divination,  however,  has  always  some  tacit  admission  of  fixed  and  trustworthy  law 
(see  p.  718  of  this  volume). 

3  See  Hewitt's  Hist,  of  the  Supernatural,  in  illustration  of  this  naive  inconsistency. 


884  BELIEFS. 

Tao-sse  ;  though  competent  as  their  sacred  book,  to  de- 
velop their  best  elements. 

And  the  school  of  Tao  must  not  be  judged  by  the  tufted 
The  merits  itinerants  who  sell  nostrums  in  Chinese  cities,  or 
Ta»  s  wa-lk  in  procession  through  fires,  bearing  images  of 
reformers,  genii,  to  impress  the  vulgar.  It  has  had  distin- 
guished members  in  every  department  of  thought ;  dynas- 
ties have  been  its  pupils  and  defenders  ;  and  it  has  waged 
long  warfare  with  the  other  two  great  religions  for  the  con- 
trol of  national  culture.1  The  "  Great  Void  "  was,  after  all, 
Tao  ;  it  was  principle,  reason,  ideal  way  ;  it  had  therefore 
its  philosophy  of  culture.  Many  writers  have  called  the 
Tao-sse  the  rationalists  of  China  in  an  eminent  sense. 
They  are  certainly  its  heretics?'  The  freedom  of  Tao  was 
a  sphere  of  spontaneity,  above  formulas  and  prescriptions  ; 
around  which  has  gathered  the  antiritualism,  if  not  the 
antinomianism,  of  the  nation. 

To  the  Tao-sse  belongs  the  worship  of  the  god  of  litera- 
Their  ture.3  The  medical  divinities  are  Tao-ist.  Chinese 
physical  medicine,  such  as  it  is,  probably  owes  more  to  the 
studies  of  these  porers  over  plants  and  minerals, 
than  to  any  other  source.  The  names  of  the  various  parts 
of  the  body  are  Tao-ist.4  So  is  the  theory  that  men  are 
formed  by  chemical  forces  within  an  immense  crucible.  In 
their  writings  on  earthly  immortality,  the  spiritual  side  is 
often  taken  against  materialism.5  They  ascribe  the  national 
doctrine  of  "  the  two  principles,"  and  the  cosmogonic  dia- 
grams of  Fo-hi,  to  their  master,  and  believe  that  Confucius 

da?rlrlarge  WaS  his  PUP^-6  Tneir  gospels  were  "written  by 
religion  the  earliest  kings."  Buddha  learned  his  lore  of 
and  letters,  fao  saints,  and  the  annunciation  to  his  Virgin 

1  For  the  history  of  its  imperial  epochs,  see  Blot's  Pub.  Instruct,  in   China. ;  Bastian's 
Ethnologic,  p.  161  ;  Schott's  Chin.  Litgesch,?.  38;  Carre's  L1  Anc.   Orient.;  Arbeiten  d. 
Russ.  Gesandtsch.  zu  Peking  (1852-1857),  I.  290. 

2  Neumann's  Lehr-saale  d.  Mtttelreiches(\^()\  p.  12. 

3  Mayers,  N.  China  Branch  R.  As.  Soc.,  1869,  1870. 

4  Edkins,  Shanghai  Almanac,  1857.  <*  Wylie,  p.  177.  •  Bastian,  I.  42'!. 


THE    TAO-SSE.  885 

Mother  was  sent  by  Lao-tse,  who  had  already  taught  the 
Tao  to  Hindu  disciples.1  Furthermore,  it  was  to  primitive 
Tao  fathers  that  writing  itself  was  revealed,  in  the  form  of 
eight  uncreated  and  everlasting  signs,  containing  the  sub- 
stance of  the  faith,  so  dazzling  that  the  wisest  cannot  bear 
the  sight  ;  and  these  signs  were  translated  into  sounds  at 
the  opening  of  the  present  world-epoch,  for  the  endless 
good  of  mankind.2  In  short,  the  Tao  spirit-spheres  are 
the  axis  of  history,  and  their  personal  powers  its  invisible 
creators.3  Among  these  they  have  admitted  Mih-teh,  the 
communist  preacher  of  universal  love.4  They  have  assidu- 
ously wrought  in  all  the  old  fields  of  belief,  mixing  doctrines 
with  a  startling  license,5  and  an  equally  singular  zeal  for 
study,  spite  of  the  warnings  of  the  Tao-te-king. 

Like  the  alchemical  books  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  works 
of  Tao-sse  doctors  made  the  ethical  purity  of  their  Moral  and 
Master   a   condition    of    success    in    their   mystic   ekmems 
quest  of  immortality.6     "The  true  alchemist  ex-  in  the 
pels  his  evil  passions,  is  diligent,  forgets  fame  and 


wealth,  comprehends   the  true  object  of  life,  and  P°wers 
gains  mastery  over  the  elements."  7    In  China,  as  in  Europe, 
these  occult  speculations  were  marked  by  an  instinctive 
reverence  for  cosmical  unity,  by  mystic  faith  in  the  identity 
of  all  elements  through  a  common  root,  and  by  spiritual 
perceptions  seemingly  at  variance  with  the  object  pursued.8 
Such  values  may  generally  be  ascribed  to  the  efforts  of  un- 
scientific people  at  communion  with   an   invisible  Itsrcla_ 
world   of  spirits,  however  distasteful  to   the  culti- 
vated  mind,  or  however  at  variance  with   the  pre- 
scriptive  methods  of  tradition  or  institution.     The  stood 
intolerant  dealing  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  with  such  appe- 

Schott,  p.  29.  2  Jour.  As.,  Sept.  and  Oct.,  1842.  3  Schott 

Faber,  Quellen  zit  Confuc.,  p.  n. 

Chalmers,  in  China  Review,  Jan.  and  Feb.,  1873.  6  Schott,  p.  34. 

Edkins,  from  a  Tao  work  in  Shanghai  Almanac,  1867. 

The  Chinese  term  for  Tao-sse  alchemy  means  "  uniting-bond  "  (Edkins). 


886  BELIEFS. 

tites  for  food  forbidden  by  the  jealousy  of  Jehovah,  has 
associated  them  in  the  Christian  Church  with  sin  ;  and  the 
contempt  into  which  they  have  at  last  been  brought  by  true 
science  has  probably  obscured  the  fact  that  they  have  been 
in  past  ages  mainly  ways  of  escape  from  dead  traditions 
into  freer  relations  with  Nature.  In  China  they  have  min- 
istered to  imaginative  faculties,  whose  demands  found  little 
encouragement  in  the  classics  or  the  schools.  In  a  blind 
way  they  have  reflected:  the  living  protest  of  the  Tao  seer. 
And,  in  all  their  extravagance,  the  stories  and  dramas  of 
this  school  abound,  as  we  have  seen,  in  half-conscious  satire 
on  the  vices  of  Church  and  State.  Their  morality  becomes 
more  marked  as  we  come  down  to  later  times,  and  is  a  fea- 
ture of  the  gradual  coalescence  of  the  Tao-sse  schools  with 
Buddhism. 

Its  sympathies  have  been  extremely  wide.  In  its  temple 
at  Peking,  statues  of  Confucius,  Buddha,  and  Lao- 
tse  stand  side  by  side,  the  central  place  being 
given  to  Buddha  in  politeness,  as  a  stranger  in  the 
land.1  'The  Yin  and  Yang,  the  goddess  Kwan-yin,  and 
deities  of  astronomical  cycles,  are  also  represented.2  The 
most  venerated  of  its  books,  next  to  the  Tao-te-king,  says 
of  the  three  religions  of  China  that,  though  differing,  they 
tend  alike  to  make  men  virtuous,  and  reproves  all  hatred 
or  contempt  of  either.  The  devotions  of  the  whole  school, 
however,  centre  in  the  Tao-te-king. 

In  explaining  the  peculiar  relations  of  this  book  to  Chi- 
Grounds     nese  culture,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  it  was  but 

the  highest  form  of  a  very  ancient  conception  of 

greatin-  i       1     •  ,  •   •  i  -i 

fluenceof    mans  relation  to  the  universe  ;  combining  a  pnilo- 

uLking°~     s°Pmcal  basis   °f  tne  world  in   Supreme   Reason, 

and  the  ethical  and  spiritual  manifestation  of  the 

same   in   human    nature.     Such   connection  is  a  constant 

element  in  the  history  of  Chinese  thought.     In   no  other 

1  Bastian,  p.  43.  2  Ibid.,  pp.  45,  46. 


THE   TAO-SSE.  88/ 

way  than  through  this  root  in  a  national  habit  of  mind  can 
we  explain  the  great  number  of  commentaries  drawn  forth 
by  a  book  so  wanting  in  apparent  grounds  of  popularity, 
in  all  the  principal  schools.  Its  depth  and  seriousness  in- 
deed, and  the  trenchant  force  of  its  criticism,  must  have 
made  it  a  spiritual  power  that  would  challenge  every 
thoughtful  mind.  It  has  had  important  influence  on  every 
eminent  person  of  later  times.  The  system  of  Chu-hi  rests 
on  similar  premises  ;  although  he  strongly  criticises  the 
abstract  and  quietist  character  of  Lao-tse.1  The  most 
sympathetic  expounder  of  the  Teacher  is  Tchwang-  Sayingsof 
tse,2  whose  saying  that  "  life  has  bounds,  but  know-  its  disci- 
ledge  is  without  bounds,"  is  worthy  a  place  in  the  P 
Tao-te-king.  In  the  same  spirit  he  declined  to  hold  office, 
because  he  would  rather  be  one  of  his  own  swine  than 
"  a  tricked-out  animal  led  by  the  cords  of  princes  to  the 
sacrifice."  In  a  famous  chapter,3  he  contrasts  the  petty 
powers  of  movement  in  creatures,  great  and  small,  with  the 
immensity  of  space  ;  and  adduces  the  obvious  limitations 
of  men,  in  their  various  functions  and  virtues,  to  point  the 
great  principle  of  Tao  ethics,  that  "  the  only  freedom  pos- 
sible is  in  conformity  to  the  laws  of  Nature  through  recti- 
tude towards  heaven  and  earth  ;  so  that  one  shall  abide 
in  their  infinite  wisdom,  in  place  of  his  own  conceits." 
"  Therefore,"  he  concludes,  "  the  true  man  is  without  ego- 
tism ;  as  the  divine  nature  disclaims  merit,  so  the  sage  the 
praise  of  men." 

"  The  Emperor  Yao  said  to  Hiu-yeou  — '  When  the  sun  and  moon 
appear,  shall  we  light  a  torch  ?  When  rain  falls,  shall  we  go  to  water- 
ing the  ground  ?  Show  thyself  for  the  good  of  the  nation,  and  let  me 
be  henceforth  a  shadow,,  for  well  I  know- my  faults.' 

"  Hiu  replied,  'Shall  I  set  myself  up  in  place  of  one  who  has  gov- 
erned the  empire  so  well.  Shall  I  be  guilty  of  pretension  so  false  ? 
The  wren  needs  but  a  branch  of  a  tree  to  live  on.  The  empire  is  not 

1  Neumann,  Introd.  to  Chuhi.  2  Fourth  century,  B.  c. 

3  Siao-yao-yeou,  translated  by  De  Rosny,  Textes  Chinois, 


888  BELIEFS. 

for  such  as  I.  Though  the  chief  provider  for  the  genii  should  prepare 
the  sacrificial  meats  but  ill,  would  it  become  his  assistant  to  leave  his 
own  humbler  work  to  supplant  him  ?  '  "  1 

The  short  mystical  aphorisms  of  the  "  Book  of  Eternal 
"The  Spirit  and  Eternal  Matter,"2  are  substantially  those 
Book  of  of  the  Tao-te-king  ;  repeating  the  mystery  of  the 
spidtand  Void  that  contains  all  things  ;  the  rest  that  is  pure 
Eternal^  stillness,  yet  nowhere  inert  ;  the  two  principles 

that  divide  the  world,  and  yet  are  one  ;  the  higher 
and  lower  souls  in  man,  and  the  dependence  of  virtue  on 
the  subjugation  of  selfish  desires.  Though  matter  and 
spirit  are  both  eternal,  yet  in  essence  trie  last  is  primal,  the 
first  secondary.  The  Tao  (Self-existent  Reason)  is  the  one 
essence  of  the  whole. 

The  Tao-saints  were  not  so  withdrawn  in  meditation, 
The  Tao-  as  not  to  have  their  eyes  open,  like  their  masters, 
puttie*™  to  tne  needs  and  dangers  of  their  times.  Even  in 
affairs.  the  wars  of  China  they  played  a  part  not  unlike 
that  of  Christian  saints  in  mediaeval  Europe.  Their  sim- 
plicity, serenity,  and  independence  seem  to  have  given 
them  a  moral  authority  which  it  is  creditable  to  the  great 
men  of  China  to  have  often  recognized,  not  for  the  secrets 
of  longevity  only,  but  in  matters  of  public  moment.  They 
were  the  counsellors  of  the  Mongol  dynasty.  Tchinggis 
Khan  was  a  disciple  of  the  Tao,  and  sent  far  across  the 

deserts   of   Central  Asia  for  the  venerable  Ch'an 


C-h  un  and     /~*i^9  •    •       i   •  i    •  •         T^          • 

*-n  un  to  vlslt  nim  at  nis  camp  in  Persia,  appar- 


Khan.  ently  for  the  sole  purpose  of  hearing  him  discourse 
of  the  duties  of  rulers  and  the  principles  of  the  Tao.  The 
record  of  the  journey  is  extant,  with  notices  of  the  man, 
and  even*  his  correspondence  with  this  Conqueror  of  the 
World.3  One  of  his  followers  describes  him  thus  :  - 

"  When  he  sat,  he  was  motionless  as  the  dead  ;  when  he  rose  up- 

1  Tao-sse  school,  transl.  by  Neumann,  Lehrsaale,  etc.  2  Ibid. 

3  See  Bretschneider's  Chinese  Mediaval  Travellers  (Shanghai,  1875). 


THE   TAO-SSE. 

right,  he  was  like  a  tree  ;  like  the  thunder  and  the  wind  when  he 
moved.  A  man  who  had  seen  and  heard  much.  There  was  not  a 
book  which  he  had  not  read.  My  veneration  for  him  increased  daily. 
He  was  always  cheerful  and  social ;  he  wrote  verses  and  loved  nature. 
He  considered  life  and  death  like  warmth  and  cold,  but  thoughts  about 
them  did  not  perplex  his  mind.  Could  he  enjoy  such  perfections  if 
not  penetrated  by  the  Tao  ?  " 

To  this  sage  wrote  the  "  Master  of  the  World  : "  — 
"As  my  calling  is  high,  my  obligations  are  heavy.  I  fear  there  is 
something  wanting  in  my  ruling.  I  have  ever  taken  to  heart  the  ruling 
of  my  people,  but  I  could  not  find  worthy  ministers.  I  have  heard 
that  thou,  master,  hast  penetrated  the  truth  and  walkest  in  the  path  of 
right.  Long  retired  from  the  world,  yet  to  thee  the  virtuous  repair 
in  multitudes,  like  clouds  on  the  path  of  the  immortals.  I  was  always 
thinking  of  thee.  But  we  are  separated  by  great  mountains  and  plains, 
and  I  cannot  meet  thee.  I  can  only  descend  from  the  throne  and 
stand  by  the  side  of  it.  I  have  prepared  an  escort  for  thee.  Do  not 
be  afraid  of  the  sandy  desert.  Pity  the  people,  or  pity  me,  and  teach 
me  the  way  of  preserving  life.  I  shall  serve  thee  myself,  and  hope 
thou  wilt  leave  me  a  trifle  of  thy  wisdom.'1 

And  the  saint  replies,  in  the  spirit  of  Lao-tse  :  — 

"  I  confess  that  in  worldly  matters  I  am  dull,  and  know  not  yet 
Tao,  though  I  have  sought  in  all  ways.  Great  as  my  repute  is,  I  am 
no  better  than  others,  and  looking  into  myself  I  am  ashamed.  Who 
knows  my  hidden  thoughts  ?  I  am  old  and  infirm,  and  even  if  I 
should  reach  your  majesty  I  should  not  be  of  service.  Public  affairs 
and  war  are  not  in  my  capacity.  The  doctrine  of  Tao  teaches  to  re- 
strain the  passions, —  a  difficult  task.  I  am  anxious  to  satisfy  your 
desire  and  to  brave  frost  and  snow.  Therefore  I  solicit  your  decision. 
Four  of  us  were  ordained  together,  —  three  have  attained  sanctity ; 
only  I  am  unworthy  the  repute  of  a  saint." 

"  Holy  man,"  said  Tchinggis,  "  you  have  come  from  far.  Have 
you  a  medicine  of  immortality?"  The  Master  replied,  "There  are 
means  for  preserving  life,  but  no  medicines  for  immortality." 

Invited  to  dine  with  the  Emperor  every  day,  he  replied  : 
"  I  am  a  wild  man  of  the  mountains  (recluse).  I  cultivate 
the  Tao  and  love  solitude."  The  Emperor  let  him  live  as 
he  liked,  and  gave  him  the  title  Shen-sien  (imperishable).1 

1  Chinese  Medueval  Travellers,  pp.  43-47. 


8QO  BELIEFS. 

His  followers  proposing  to  carry  home  the  bones  of  a 
disciple  who  died  in  these  far  lands,  he  answered  them 
thus  :  "The  body  shaped  of  the  elements  perishes  without 
any  value ;  but  the  soul  is  real  and  free  and  none  can  grasp 
it."  "  Upon  that,"  says  the  narrator,  "no  more  was  said."  1 

These  elements  do  not  exhaust  the  school.  All  desires 
Popular  to  reach  occult  wisdom  without  the  toil  of  learning 
'  flowed  into  the  open  gate  of  Tao,  "Mother  of  the 
Unknown."  Always  what  a  few  call  "the  Un- 
knowable  "  is  that  which  all  seek  most  to  know, 
Tao-  and  that  in  which  they  must  somehow  find  a  home 
for  trust.  Itself  democratic,  early  Taoism  was  flooded  with 
a  fetichism  still  older,  popular  and  native  to  the  Chinese. 
Shamanic  genii,  exorcisms  and  spells  ;  strivings  for  earthly 
longevity  ;  the  quest  for  imperishable  youth  ;  vague  hopes 
of  vegetable  or  metallic  means  for  transforming  into  splen- 
dors the  miseries  of  human  experience  ;  Hindu  reverence 
for  life  in  all  creatures  ;  Buddhist  trinities  and  destinies  ; 
recording  spirits  laying  up  the  details  of  conduct  in  writ- 
ing for  future  judgment,  —  all  these  tendencies  found  foot- 
hold and  freedom  under  the  broad  shield  of  Tao.  To  not 
one  of  them  did  the  work  of  Lao-tse  give  sanction.  But  its 
Their  broad  sympathy  with  free  aspiration  ;  its  startling 
point  of  contrasts  of  the  outward  and  inward  ;  its  oracular 

attach-  . 

ment  to  paradoxes  ;  its  promise  of  mystic  resources  in  the 
n^den  life,  and  especially  of  immunity  from  death, 
which  though  spiritual  in  meaning,  like  that  of  the 
Hebrew  Book  of  Wisdom  and  the  Gospel  of  Jesus,  could 
easily  be  taken  in  a  physical  sense ;  its  instinct  of  cosmi- 
cal  unity,  and  its  praise  of  the  simple  and  unlearned ;  in 
sum,  its  constant  emphasis  on  the  invisible  laws  by  which 
all  institutions  were  to  be  tried,  and  before  which  they 
were  found  wanting,  —  were  points  of  ready  attachment 
for  these  crude .  expectations  from  the  spirit  world.  How 

1  Chinese  Mediaeval  Travellers,  p.  50. 


THE   TAO-SSE.  89! 

wide  their  margin  for  vague  sentiment  compared  with  the 
close  appeal  of  the  national  classics  to  the  understanding, 
and  to  definite  relations  and  interests  ! 1 

It  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  the  Tao-te-king  could  have 
been  accepted  as  an  ideal,  without  elevating  the  significant 
standard  of  thought  and  sentiment  among  the  less  ^^ 
cultured.  And  although  the  works  of  the  school  Woiks- 
are  to  a  great  extent  known  to  us  through  their  opponents, 
they  retain  marks  of  this  refining  influence  even  in  their 
titles :  "  The  Light  of  the  Darkened  House,"  "  The  Heart- 
enlightening  Mirror,"  "  The  Book  of  Rewards  and  Punish- 
ments," "  The  Book  of  Devotion  and  Faith,"  "  The  Book 
of  the  Outward  and  Inwurd,"  "  Ascent  to  the  Mystery  of 
Wisdom,"  "  Transformation  by  Wisdom  and  Virtue."  The 
effect  of  these  works  is  likened  to  "  that  of  a  bell  struck  in 
the  silence  of  midnight,"  —  so  distinct  is  their  appeal  to 
the  contemplative  nature. 

De  Rosny  has   recently  translated  one  of  the  shortest 
of  their  earliest  ethical  treatises,  which  gives  us  <.Book  of 
as  noble  a  standard  of  duty  as  any  gospel  in  the  Rewards 
world,  —  the  Yin-tcJd-wen,  or  "  Book  of  Rewards  for  acts  done 
Benefits  done  in  secret."2     It  opens  with  the  dec-  insecret-" 
laration,  by  an  ancient  divine  ruler,  of  his  providential  care 
of  men :  — 

"  I  have  judged  men  for  seventeen  generations.  Never  have  I 
oppressed  the  people,  nor  borne  hard  on  the  laborer.  I  have  rescued 
them  from  calamity,  have  relieved  their  miseries  ;  I  have  had  pity  on 
their  orphans,  and  forborne  with  their  faults  ;  I  have  wrought  them 
good  in  secret  ways.  Above  them  I  have  moved  the  blue  heavens. 
May  they  keep  their  hearts  in  my  ways,  and  they  shall  receive  the 
blessings." 

Self-renewal  in  the  heart  ;  constant  acts  of  love,  all  of 
which  shall  reap  their  rewards  ;  reverence  for  Buddha,  and 

1  There  is  plainly  no  need  of  supposing,  with  Gallery,  the  existence  of  another  Lao-tse,  as 
author  of  a  book  of  magic,  afterwards  confounded  with  the  Tao-te-king. 

2  Ttxtts  Chinois. 


8Q2  BELIEFS. 

/ 

study  of  good  books  ;   help  to  the  unfortunate,  and  even 
to  creatures  under  the  feet ;  honest  weight  and  measure ; 
generosity  to  servants  ;   trust  in  friends,  —  these  are  sam 
pies  of  the  quality  of  precepts,  far  superior  to  those  of  the 
gnomic  poets  of  Greece. 

"  Burn  not  the  forests.  Light  a  torch  in  the  night  for  travellers  ; 
build  a  boat  to  take  them  over  streams.  Spread  no  nets  for  birds  in 
the  woods.  Slay  not  the  laboring  ox.  Plot  not  for  thy  richer  neigh- 
bor's goods.  Envy  not  another's- wife  or  daughters.  Sow  not  strife. 
Break  not  marriages.  Use  not  thy  riches  to  oppress  the  poor.  Invite 
to  virtue  by  practising  it  in  body  and  soul.  Hide  the  faults  of  others, 
and  make  known  their  virtues.  Let  not  thy  tongue  say  what  thy  heart 
denies.  Give  to  posterity  the  instruction  that  will  reform  mankind. 
Surrender  thy  riches  for  the  good  of  the  human  race.  In  action  be 
conformed  to  Heavenly  Reason;  in  speech,  to  the  moral  sense  of 
humanity.  Examine  thy  conscience  in  the  solitude  of  thy  bed." 

The  practical  tone  of  this  manual  proves  that  the  "  mid- 
night bell"  of  the  Tao  meant  more  than  a  call  to  holy 
dreams. 

All  these  qualities  come  to  their  high-water  mark  in  the 
The  Kqn-ing-pien,1  or  "  Book  of  Rewards  and  Punish- 
^°rkdsof  ments,"  the  real  Bible  of  the  Tao-sse  ;  of  all  their 
and  Pun-  works  the  most  widely  read,  the  most  comprehen- 
(K^n-ing-  S'IVQ  in  its  use  °f  a^  other  faiths,  and  the  most 
Pien)-  hospitable  to  current  superstitions  concerning  the 
invisible  powers.  Though  in  its  present  form  a  long  elab- 
oration,2 it  is  nevertheless  ascribed  to  Lao-tse  himself.  It 
is  an  ethical  anthology  of  two  hundred  precepts,  accom- 
panied by  sanctions  which  mainly  consist  in  a  record  of 
human  intentions  and  actions,  made  by  an  invisible  police 
with  view  to  future  retribution  in  the  lengthening  or  short- 
ening of  the  earthly  life.  The  ethical  quality  of  these  max- 
ims is  unsurpassable.  The  purity  of  taste  shown  in  the 

1  Translated  by  Julie$  (1835). 

2  It  can  hardly  be  traced  back  beyond  the  tenth  or  twelfth  century,  and  appears  to  be  the 
work  of  a  collector  named  Wang-siang. 


THE    TAOSSE.  893 

compilation  is  in  such  contrast  with  the  puerility  of  the 
retributory  framework,  that  the  combination  would  amaze 
us,  were  we  not  familiar  with  the  same  phenomenon  in  all 
the  Bibles  of  the  world. 

Fruits  of  a  popular  demand  for  the  universal  wisdom  of 
seers  and  prophets,  yet  enfolding  these  treasures 

The  Bibles 

in  the  torms  in  which  they  are  appreciable  by  un- 


scientific  minds,  the  Bibles  blend  in  their  contents  W1*dom 

and  fool- 


the  mastership  of  the  wise  with  the  subservience 
of  the  foolish.  But  the  moral  appreciation  they  man' 
contain  is  of  more  moment  to  us  than  the  follies  and  fears 
with  which  it  is  burdened,  and  which  are  but  as  the  broken 
speech  of  one  who  stammers  love  and  confidence  in  an  ill- 
known  tongue.  It  is  so  that  religion  demonstrates  the 
unity  of  the  race. 

Let  us,  after  all,  remember  that  science  has  not  as  yet, 
even  in  the  most  civilized  communities,  gone  far  in   p0HCe 
effacing  the  traditional  notions  of    a  police  man-  manase 

ment  of 

agement  of  the  universe.  They  still  resist  its  theuni- 
assaults  on  the  belief  in  Divine  interference  with  J^^ 
the  movement  of  natural  law  ;  a  dogma  in  which  religions. 
the  espionage  of  the  old  Oriental  genii  is  concentrated  in  the 
intensest  degree  by  monotheism.  The  4<  jealous  God"  of 
the  Christian  Sabbath  includes  in  one  Being  all'the  powers 
wielded  by  the  invisible  mandarins  of  the  Tao-sse  police,  and 
plies  reward  and  punishment  on  the  other  side  of  death  as 
arithmetically  as  they  do  on  this.  The  Hebrew  idea  of  retri- 
bution, involving  minute  personal  supervision,  runs  through 
the  whole  Christian  Bible.  And  they  who  still  quote  the 
tale  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira,  or  the  miraculous  extension 
of  the  lifetime  of  Lazarus,  can  hardly  contemn  the  dealings 
of  the  Kan-ing-pien  with  the  thread  of  human  life.  Sab- 
bath manuals  and  revivalist  machinery  still  exercise  con- 
stabulary powers  in  the  name  of  God  ;  and  praying  bands 
vie  with  inflated  preachers  in  the  function  of  handling  keys 


894  BELIEFS. 

at  the  earthly  end  of  supposed  telegraphs  that  announce 
their  verdicts  or  desires  to  the  Throne,  and  bring  back  the 
postponing  indulgence  or  the  condemnation  without  re- 
prieve.1 It  is  still  popular  to  preach  death  as  a  police 
arrangement  for  warning  or  punishing  the  living,  by  tak- 
ing off  the  objects  of  their  love.  This  idea  is  rigidly  put 
in  the  Chinese  Scripture  now  before  us  ;  the  wives  and 
children  of  the  wicked  being  taken  from  them  to  balance 
their  accounts  with  criminal  justice.2 

Nothing  in  the  Kan-ing-pien  theory  of  retribution  need 
The  Kan  surprise  the  disciples  of  any  Bible  in  the  world, 
ing-pien  But  from  all  Bibles  alike  chaff  falls  away  in  due 
freeTm1  time>  and  real  grain  endures,  —  the  pure  and  lofty 

andim-  ethic  that  has  been  the  main  factor  in  their  help- 
mortality,  f  ,  .  .  . 

lulness,  as  it  was  the  deeper  motive  power  m  their 

growth.  The  thread  on  which  our  Tao-sse  sentences  are 
strung  is  the  consciousness  of  moral  freedom  and  of  alle- 
giance to  eternal  right.  "  The  happiness  and  misery  of  men 
are  not  predetermined.  Man  draws  the  one  and  the  other 
by  his  conduct.  Reward  and  punishment  follow  good  and 
evil  as  the  shadow  the  body."3  Nor  is  immortality  be- 
yond death  excluded  by  the  earthly  nature  of  these  retri- 
butions.4 However  confidently  the  Tao-sse  looked  for  an 
elixir  of  earthly  longevity,  they  could  not  but  see  that  death 
came  alike  to  evil  and  good  ;  so  that  their  promises  of  im- 
mortality to  the  righteous  cpuld  have  had  no  merely  phy- 
sical meaning,  but  pointed  to  that  connection  which  men 
have  been  apt  in  all  ages  to  cherish  between  Tightness  and 
lastingness.  Even  the  curious  extension  of  their  arith- 

A  Methodist  bishop  is  recorded  as  pronouncing  the  deaths  of  several  American  statesmen 
within  a  few  years  as  proofs  of  the  divine  disapproval  of  their  opposition  to  the  national  admin- 
istration. The  favorable  answer  from  God  to  the  prayers  of  a  sensational  preacher  for  a  sick 
relative,  by  the  immediate  improvement  of  the  patient,  though  at  a  considerable  distance  from 
the  human  operator,  was  reported  by  the  latter  in  one  of  our  city  pulpits,  and  doubtless  widely 
accepted  by  his  converts. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  504.  s  jbid.,  p.  6.  *  Ibid.,  p.  133- 


THE   TAO-SSE.  895 

metical  ethics  to  the  point  of  transferring  one's  unpaid 
accounts  with  the  moral  law  at  his  death  to  his  descend- 
ants, did  not  imply  that  he  was  himself  beyond  reach  of 
further  payment.  By  the  patriarchal  faith  a  man's  vir- 
tues flow  back  in  honor  and  blessing  on  his  fathers  ;  and 
it  is  in  the  same  spirit  that  he  assumes  their  moral  debts 
and  wipes  them  out  by  bearing  the  unpaid  penalties. 

To  us  it  seems  scarcely  conceivable  that  civilized  races 
like  the  Chinese  and  the    Hebrews  should   have 

Sources  of 

been   firmly  persuaded   that  the   length   of   men's  theiiiu- 
lives    depends   on   their   moral    qualities  ;   but  we  ^",^1 
forget  that  veneration  for  age  was  the  religion  of  su 
the  Oriental   world,  whose   devout    illusions   were 
harshly  broken  by  the  sharp  senses  of  the  Greek.  ence  of 
The  hoary  head  was  the  highest  token  of  Divine  against 
care.     Its  claim  to  the  best  shares  in   life  would  expen" 

ence. 

maintain  firm  hold  on  the  sense  of  justice,  even  to 
the  disregard  of  frequent  facts  of  experience.  For  it  is 
not  experience  that  governs  the  belief  of  men,  but  their 
interpretation  of  experience.  There  is  a  virtue  in  re- 
ligious faith  akin  to  imaginative  power ;  it  is  able  to 
believe  against  all  apparent  outward  evidence  what  its 
ideal  demands.  "  Despair,"  says  the  Arab  proverb,  "  is 
a  freeman  ;  hope  is  a  slave."  It  is  but  putting  the  same 
truth  in  another  form,  when  Shelley  sings  of  "  hoping  till 
hope  creates  from  its  own  wreck  the  thing  it  contem- 
plates." Forces  like  these  are  indispensable,  on  every 
level  of  culture,  to  lift  man  above  his  allotted  weight  of 
pain  and  loss.  The  audacity  of  their  obstinate  promise  of 
equal  justice  to  be  meted  out  in  this  life  is  but  an  instinct- 
ive form  of  loyalty  to  the  unseen  resources  of  virtue  and 
its  claim  to  command. 

The  persistence  of  beliefs  against  experience  is  favored 

tby   the  wide  margin  left   for  saving  explanations.      The 

Tao-sse  theory,  that  every  good  act  added  to  the  years  of 


896  BELIEFS. 

life  and  every  bad  one  diminished  them,  was  beyond  the 
power  of  human  insight  to  apply  with  any  thing  like  pre- 
cision ;  and  the  practical  result  would  be  that  men  would 
strive  to  attain  long  life  by  good  conduct,  without  pretend- 
ing to  question  cases  in  which  the  law  appeared  to  be  re- 
versed. A  religious  belief,  when  backed  by  a  sense  of 
moral  benefit,  resists  inductive  scepticism  ;  no  longer  de- 
pendent on  instances,  it  stands  by  appropriating  the  a 
Throu  h  priori  authority  of  the  moral  sense.  Shall  its 
moral  claim  be  confuted  by  some  bit  of  uncomprehended 
lon'  fact  ?  A  higher  logic  moves  in  its  wings,  and  its 
feet  are  not  entangled  in  earthly  stumbling.  On  lower 
stages  of  growth  as  on  higher,  facts  are  plastic  to  the  idea, 
and  this  possessor  of  the  soul  is  the  interpreter  of  the  world. 
Hence  the  difficulty  of  escaping  an  error  so  rooted  in  moral 
justifications  as  is  this  belief  in  the  squaring  of  personal  ac- 
countabilities in  the  present  life.  So  strong  its  hold,  that  the 
protest  against  it  has  been  a  sign  of  rare  genius,  and  makes 
spiritual  landmarks  and  immortal  scriptures  like  the  drama 
of  Job.  The  familiar  act  of  faith,  by  which  the  Christian 
affirms  the  existence  of  a  perfect  God  and  the  absolute  jus- 
tice of  his  ways,  is  ventured  in  face  of  a  mass  of  positive 
and  permanent  evil  tenfold  more  crushing  than  the  prac- 
tical evidence  against  which  the  Oriental  world  maintained 
this  doctrine  that  health  and  longevity  were  signs  of  the 
approval  of  Heaven.1  It  is  seldom  that  a  believer  realizes 
the  extent  to  which  his  own  creed  overrides  the  laws  of 
evidence ;  it  is  only  when  he  turns  to  the  study  of  other 
religions  that  his  common  sense  enters  the  field,  and  he 
wonders  at  a  far  less  amount  of  the  same  element  as  an 
incredibly  superstitious  evasion  of  the  plainest  facts. 

1  The  only  religion  that  absolutely  refuses  to  faith  this  power  of  ignoring  hostile  experi- 
ences is  Pessimism ;  and  this,  as  is  proved  by  the  philosophy  of  Schopenhauer,  its  most  con- 
spicuous advocate,  asserts  the  right  of  the  understanding  to  protest  against  the  world  and  life,  ( 
only  to  pronounce  its  exetcise  of  this  and  every  other  function  to  be  itself  an  illusion   and  a 
fraud. 


THE    TAO-SSE.  897 

The  Kan-ing-pien  carries  the  theory  to  its  extreme  con- 
sequences.   Poverty,  calamity,  mortifications,  evil  re- 

rc  Jr  .,       Thethe- 

pute,  every  effect  of  adverse  stars,  pursue  the  evil-  oryot  ideal 
doer  and  make  the  penalty-shortened  life  intolera-  earthly 

retribution 

ble.     The  virtuous,  on  the  other  hand,  "  succeeds  jn  the 
in  all    his    undertakings,    being    in     accord   with   Kan-5ns- 

pien ;  how 

Heaven."1     It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  the  interpre- 
inference  was  strictly  drawn  so  as   to  make   mis-  ted< 
fortune  always  a  proof  of  sin.     The  pith  of  the  matter  was 
simply  that  the  physical  world   and  the  fortunes  of  men 
were  under  one  ethical  law,  revealed  in  the  human  ideal  of 
right.     However  true  as  a  basis  of  philosophical  thought, 
this  principle  depends  for  its  interpretation  on   a  culture 
which  knows  how  to  recognize  the  ways  in  which  the  laws 
of  Nature  really  serve  the  nobler  life  of  man. 

"  If  a  man  be  unjust,"  says  Plato,  "let  nothing  that  is 
called  good  ever  be  his.  For  to  have  all  good  in  piato. 
things  without  justice  and  virtue  is  the  greatest  of  evils,  if 
the  man  be  immortal ;  not  so  great,  if  he  lives  a  very  short 
time.  These  are  the  truths  you  must  compel  your  poets 
to  teach  your  youth.  If  I  were  a  lawgiver,  I  would  inflict 
very  heavy  penalties  on  any  one  who  should  dare  to  say 
that  there  are  bad  men  who  lead  pleasant  lives,  or  that  the 
profitable  and  gainful  are  one  thing  and  the  just  another."2 

The  inexorable  justice  of  Nature,  as  asserted  in  the 
Kan-ing-pien,  does  not  reach  these  high  spiritual  itsrnerci- 
justifications  ;  but  neither  does  it  exclude  the  tender  fulsi<ie. 
mercies  that  alone  could  reconcile  man  to  its  severity. 
The  sinner's  repentance  began  a  series  of  balancing  credits 
which  assured  him,  if  persevered  in,  of  final  felicity.3  "  If 
your  heart  forms  a  good  intent,  though  you  have  not  yet 
acted  on  it,  the  good  spirits  attend  you  ;  if  a  bad  one, 
though  yet  unaccomplished,  the  evil  are  at  your  side."4 

1  Kan-ing-pien,  pp.  10,  128.  s  Laws,  II. 

s  Kan-ing-pien,  p.  514.  «  Ibid.,  p.  513. 

57 


898  BELIEFS. 

This  emphasis  on  the  interior  quality  of  virtue,  on  reality 
and  sincerity,  the  substance  before  the  show,  which  marked 
the  ethics  of  the  Tao-te-king,  pervades  the  whole  Kan-ing- 
pien,  and  indicates  that  the  spiritistic  machinery  of  the 
school  was  a  later  accretion,  and  had  small  effect  on  the 
kernel  of  its  tradition. 

Tread  not  a  crooked  path.  Good  intentions  are  the  same  with 
Sentences  good  actions.  Deceive  not  in  the  secrecy  of  your  house, 
from  the  Rectify  your  own  heart  that  you  may  improve  others.  It  is 
crime  to  think  against  justice  ;  secretly  to  injure  good  men  ; 
Virtue  in  to  know  what  is  good  and  not  do  it ;  to  ascribe  one's  own 
the  heart,  crimes  to  others  ;  to  expose  others  to  danger  to  save  one's 
self ;  to  seek  one's  advantage  at  the  expense  of  others  ;  to  be  proud 
of  success  by  wrong  means  ;  to  claim  the  good  deeds  of  others  -,  to 
make  unjust  estimates  of  good  and  evil ;  to  hide  treachery  in  the 
heart ;  secretly  to  desire  to  possess  others  on  account  of  their  beauty, 
or  to  covet  what  belongs  to  them  ;  to  speak  otherwise  than  one  thinks  ; 
to  defame  others,  and  call  one's  self  pure  ;  to  regard  any  wickedness 
as  a  sign  of  ability. 

It  is  a  crime  to  enrich  one's  self  by  fraud  ;  to  give  bad  goods  in 
In  exterior  return  for  good  ;  to  seek  riches  eagerly ;  to  destroy  the 
relations,  property  of  others  ;  to  adulterate  merchandise  ;  to  use  short 
measures  ;  to  borrow  and  not  return ;  to  usurp  the  fruits  of  other 
men's  labor  or  skill ;  to  get  office  by  cunning  and  fraud  ;  to  buy  lying 
praises  ;  to  harm  weaker  persons  in  order  to  advance  one's  self ;  to 
forsake  public  good  for  private  ends  ;  to  fawn  on  superiors  ;  to  dis- 
order administration,  rewarding  the  guilty,  punishing  the  innocent ;  to 
break  law  and  receive  bribes  ;  to  deceive  the  simple  ;  to  make  light  of 
the  people's  life. 

Follow  righteousness  and  filial  piety  ;  respect  the  old  and  cherish 
In  private  tne  young.  It  is  a  crime  to  treat  near  relatives  angrily  ;  to 
relations,  fail  of  mutual  respect  as  husband  and  wife  ;  to  show  disre- 
spect to  one's  teacher  ;  to  calumniate  one's  fellow  disciples  ;  to  enter 
foolishly  into  bad  society.  Receive  the  favor  of  princes  with  fear. 

Pity  the  orphan  and  the  widow  ;  pity  the  unfortunate  ;  ridicule  not 
Humane  their  infirmities  ;  save  men  in  danger  ;  rejoice  in  their  suc- 
sentiments.  cess,  and  mourn  their  losses  as  if  they  were  your  own  ;  yield 
much  and  take  little ;  be  not  angry  at  insults ;  do  favors  without  ex- 
pecting rewards  ;  give  without  regretting  it ;  be  humane  to  animals, 
even  to  insects  ;  harm  not  even  plants  or  trees ;  do  not  frighten  sleep-' 


THE   TAO-SSE.  899 

ing  birds,  nor  kill  those  with  young,  nor  break  eggs  without  motive. 
They  who  kill  innocent  men  are  like  foes  that  slay  each  other;  he  who 
defrauds  another  is  like  one  who  swallows  poison. 

Wasting  cloth  or  grain,    or  poisoning    trees  ;    pursuing  pleasure 
immoderately  ;  hurrying  from  old  things  to  new  ;  drinking  to  Against 
excess ;  boastfulness  ;  wilful  caprices,  —  are  wrong.    To  rid-  bad  habits. 
icule  saints  and  sages  ;  to  murmur  at  Heaven,  curse  the  weather,  mock 
at  spirits,  call  heaven  and  earth  to  witness  in  behalf  of  crime  ;    Against 
to  show  contempt  for  the  souls  of  one's  ancestors,  —  are    in-eligion. 
crimes  against  religion. 

To  these  are  added  warnings  against  misleading  the 
people  with  false  doctrines  ;  and  a  variety  of  admonitions 
as  to  keeping  sacred  days,  seasons,  and  places ;  and  against 
such  superstitions  as  grew  out  of  an  earlier  condition  of 
semi-barbarous  life,  such  as  "  passing  over  live  men,  leaping 
over  fire,  pointing  at  a  rainbow  or  spitting  at  a  shooting 
star."  Finally,  all  honor  the  virtuous  ;  Heaven  protects 
him  ;  evil  spirits  avoid  him  ;  he  succeeds  in  every  Blessings 
thing  ;  he  may  look  for  immortality  in  another  life, 
and  for  happiness  and  public  trusts  in  this. 


The  second  part  of  the  Kan-ing-pien  is  a  running  com- 
mentary on  the  maxims,  illustrated  by  instances  The  Kan- 
which  enforce  the  doctrine  of  retribution  in  a  more 
complex  form.  Its  imperial  preface  dates  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  it  is  manifestly  separated  from 
the  first  part  by  a  wide  interval.  The  simplicity  of  the 
older  precepts  has  given  way  to  paraphrase  and  exposition, 
in  which  sentences  are  interwoven,  usually  of  equal  moral 
ideality  with  the  former.  The  exact  squaring  of  accounts 
with  the  moral  law  is  here  carried  on  into  a  future  Ethical  re- 
life,  betraying  the  influence  of  Buddhism,  and  pos-  ^"^ 
sibly  in  some  degree  of  Jesuit  Christianity,  at  that  future  life. 
time  active  in  the  empire.  Men  pass  back  and  forth  be- 
tween the  worlds,  curiously  mixing  up  the  inferno  of  Manu 


QOO  BELIEFS. 

or  Dante 1  with  the  every-day  concerns  of  life.  Everlast- 
ing penalties  await  infanticide,  and  "deceiving  of  the  people 
by  lies;"  others,  such  as  those  that  punish -cruel  officials, 
are  measured  by  Buddhist  kalpas.  As*  in  Manu,  the 
wicked  inflict  sufferings  on  themselves  similar  to  those 
they  have  wrought  in  others,  or  suffer  death  from  diseases 
of  the  organs  they  have  abused.  The  "  unpardonable  sin  " 
is  not  in  speaking  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  but  in  maltreat- 
ment of  parents.  Resurrections  are  a  commonplace,  and 
enter  regularly  into  the  retributory  system  as  executed  by 
the  decisions  of  the  spiritual  court.  This  system  has  also 
the  control  of  cosmical  phenomena,  directing  them  on  the 
with  cc  Person  °f  tne  sinner,  who  is  struck  by  lightning, 
micai  phe-  smitten  with  disease,  or  swept  away  by  strong  winds, 
nomena.  „  -j^e  epochs  of  wind  and  rain  are  deranged  by 
crimes  of  rulers  and  people."  Boys  who  burn  sacred  books 
are  carried  off  by  pestilence.  The  Tao-sse  Ananias  is  an 
official  who  beats  an  angel  disguised  as  a  mendicant  ;  an 
unkind  son  is  crushed  by  a  stone  falling  out  of  the  sky ; 
violent  men  die  violent  deaths  ;  the  blasphemer  of  spirits 
is  torn  by  a  dog  ;  the  licentious  person  sees  his  children 
given  over  to  vices  like  his  own,  for  which  no  miracle 
would  seem  necessary  ;  a  moral  intuition  is  hinted  in  the 
aphorism  that  "  Providence  has  no  special  affection,  yet 
always  helps  the  virtuous."  These  mathematics,  that  de- 
The.r  termine  destiny  as  a  quotient  of  balanced  accounts 
democratic  in  good  and  evil  conduct,  override  all  earthly  dis- 
tinctions ;  and,  in  the  judgment,  both  Chinese  and 
Buddhist  wisdom  see  the  slave  equal  with  his  master,  and 
the  beggar  under  one  responsibility  with  his  prince. 

The  main  motive  to  which  TaQ-sse  preaching  appeals  is 
official  the  love  of  official  position,  which  is  promised  to  all 
aTelbka*8  g°°d  people  with  an  assurance  as  astonishing  as 
reward.  the  legend-manufacture  by  which  it  is  enforced 

1  Kan-ing-pien,  pp.  136,  94,  453. 


THE   TAO-SSE.  QOI 

A  kind  of  second  childhood  in  an  old  country,  this  appeal 
merely  means  that  the  civil  service  holds  in  China  the  place 
so  long  held  by  the  Church  in  Christian  countries,  as  under 
special  Divine  blessing.  Open  to  all,  the  hope  of  office  is 
as  available  a  stimulus  to  the  morality  of  the  Tao-sse  as  it 
is  to  the  ambition  of  the  American  schoolboy.  It  is  true 
that  the  proportions  here  tabulated  between  virtue  and  its 
rewards  involve  an  ideal  estimate  of  office  to  which  even 
our  education  has  not  yet  attained.  For  instance,  one  who 
voluntarily  assumed  the  death-penalty  in  place  of  a  younger 
brother  is  on  record  as  indemnified  by  having  a  grandson 
who  is  raised  to  a  magistracy  and  fills  it  with  credit.  An- 
other, who  has  provided  for  an  impoverished  man  who  had 
been  his  teacher,  receives  as  reward  a  post  of  the  third 
class  and  the  pleasure  of  seeing  his  descendants  successful 
in  the  school  examinations. 

Against  these  puerilities  we  may  put  such  stories  and 
sentences  as  the  following  :  — 

The  Emperor  Wu-ti  said  one  day  to  a  priest :   "  All  my  life  I  have 
loved  to  bestow  favors.     Have  I  acquired  merits  ?  "     "  Not 
one,"  answered  the  priest.    "  Your  actions  were  prompted  by   principles 
desire  of  recompense,  and  were  therefore  without  virtue."  —   andpre- 
The  immortals  seek  men  more  earnestly  than  they  are  sought    cepts  °.£ 
by  them.     The  gods  are  rectitude  itself,  and  accept  the  per-   h 
son  of  no  man.    Do  not  seek  to  flatter  or  bribe  them  in  your  prayers  ; 
such  prayers  will  bring  you  misery  only.     Men  say,  "  Deceive  not  the 
gods  ;  "  but  I  say  that  he  who  cannot  deceive  his  own  heart  can  hardly 
deceive  spiritual  beings.     We  cannot  disguise  our  actions  even  by 
the  thickness  of  a  hair.  —  The  judge  after  death  refuses  to  recognize 
earthly  contracts  in  evidence  of  character,  saying,  "  I  will  take  note 
only  of  the  witness  in  your  own  heart."     He  who  lusts  after  another  is 
guilty  from  the  moment  of  forming  the  desire.     Wine  is  a  destroyer  of 
the  reason  of  man.    Instead  of  repairing  bridges  and  highways,  smooth 
the  highway  of  your  own  heart.     When  that  is  levelled,  all  else  shall 
be  smooth.     The  spirits  are  within  as  well  as  without  us,  and  the  wise 
will  watch  their  hearts,  not  pardoning  their  own  lightest  faults.    Better 
rouse  the  anger  of  the  gods  than  yield  to  the  corruption  of  the  age. 
The  fidelity  of  the  dog  should  shame  those  who  forget  benefits.     He 


QO2  BELIEFS. 

who  has  received  a  drop  of  water  ought  to  give  a  fountain  in  return. 
When  children,  servants,  or  guests  commit  faults,  we  should  hold  our- 
selves the  authors.  Yu,  seeing  criminals  led  to  prison,  wept  for  the 
vices  that  had  led  to  their  fate.  Tao-wen,  seeing  the  sufferings  of  la- 
boring men,  reproached  himself  as  their  cause.  Fou-pi,  being  insulted, 
took  no  notice  of  it,  but  replied,  "  I  think  some  one  else  was  meant." 
The  aggressor  blushed,  and  apologized.  A  magistrate,  being  ridiculed 
by  a  student,  refused  to  hear  his  name,  lest  he  might  not  be  able  to 
forget  it.  A  high  officer  gave  this  advice  at  death  to  his  sons  :  "  En- 
dure insults.  How  many  calamities  have  befallen  because  brave  men 
would  not  bear  wrong !  "  Another,  about  to  sign  a  death-warrant, 
dropped  his  pencil,  saying,  "  I  have  no  strength  to  write."  The  sum 
of  duties  is  to  cultivate  virtues  in  secret,  and  to  do  good  to  all  creat- 
ures, according  to  one's  means  and  with  all  one's  might.  What  is 
useful  to  other  men  cannot  fail  to  be  useful  to  yourself.  Sorceries,  that 
endanger  life,  health,  or  estate,  should  be  prohibited  and  punished  ; 
but  let  wise  and  useful  practice  of  medicine  be  encouraged.  The  an- 
cients said,  "  Do  not  kill  a  bird  three  springs  old.  The  little  ones  in 
the  nest  await  the  mother's  and  father's  return."  One  who  shot  at  a 
stag,  and  hit  his  own  son,  heard  in  his  grief  a  voice  say,  "  The  stag 
loves  his  child  as  much  as  you  loved  yours."  The  rites  are  violated 
when  creatures  are  slain  in  numbers  to  gratify  the  palate.  Laws  are 
known  to  all  nations  protecting  the  ox  who  toils  for  us,  and  harms  none. 

These  practical  ideals  should  surely  redeem  Tao-sse  lib- 
eralism from  the  suspicion  of  religious  indifference  which 
has  been  so  often  urged  against  this  reverent  sentence  of 
the  Kan-ing-pien  :  — 

"  Though  the  religions  of  the  Confucians,  the  Buddhists,  and  the 
Tao-sse  differ,  yet  their  principles  tend  equally  to  make  men  virtuous. 
They  who  ridicule  and  despise  them  are  guilty  of  great  crime." 

Tao-ist  theology  at  the  present  day  represents  in  a  corn- 
present  bined  form  the  large  sympathies  which  have  led  it 
theology  constantly  in  the  past.  Its  highest  God,  according 
the  fusion  '  to  Edkins,1  dwells  in  the  heavens,  creator  and  mover 
of  Chinese  thereof,  and  source  of  all  truth  ;  immaterial  and 

e  ements. 

spontaneous :  —  evidently  the  meaning  of  Tao  is  not 
yet  lost.    Its  second  divinity  presides  over  the  books  of  the 

1  Paper  read  to  N.  China  Branch  R.  A.  Soc.,  May  19,  1859. 


THE   TAO-SSE.  903 

school,  the  movement  of  times,  and  the  evolution  of  the 
two  principles  ;  and  the  third  is  Lao-tse  himself,  the  incar- 
nation of  doctrine  as  life,  revealing  himself  in  various  forms 
and  times  to  deliver  mankind. 

Have  we  not,  we  may  ask,  in  this  combination  of  spiritual 
essence,  cosmical  immanence,  and  saving  manifestation, 
the  Tao-ism  of  Lao-tse,  the  naturalism  of  Confucius,  and 
the  Avatar  system  of  Buddha  ?  The  union  is  crude,  but 
it  is  real. 

Beneath  these,  according  to  the  same  account,  all  forms 
and  elements  are  interfused  with  spirit  powers,  apparently 
of  Shamanic  and  Buddhist  origin  ;  products  of  many  ages 
of  alchemy,  astrology,  and  other  efforts  to  penetrate  the 
mystery  of  the  world.  Most  of  them  seem  to  be  benevo- 
lent and  helpful ;  such  as  "  the  Honored  One,"  who  hears 
and  saves  the  suffering,  ferries  souls  to  heaven  in  the  lotos- 
boat,  holding  the  willow  branch,  whence  he  scatters  dew  of 
doctrine  ;  the  all-merciful  Kwan-yin  ;  "the  Thunderer,"  who 
renovates  all ;  "  the  Sun-spirit,"  transformer  of  evil  to  good  ; 
"  the  Moon-spirit,"  impartially  dispensing  joy  and  sorrow. 
A  God  of  letters,  identified  somehow  with  the  constella- 
tion of  the  Bear,  protects  all  creeds  and  maintains  culture. 
Even  Confucius  has  divine  honors.  A  divine  succession 
of  patriarchs  have  transmitted  the  doctrine,  and  one  of 
them  at  least  is  a  woman.  Alchemists  and  physicians  are 
in  honor,  lists  of  the  most  famous  being  kept,  and  records  of 
their  great  works.  The  living  head  of  the  Church  is  called 
Heavenly  Teacher  (Tien-shi),  and  Great  Ruler  (Ta-te). 

On  the  shadowy  border-land  between  the  seen  and  un- 
seen, life  and  death,  the  groping  of  the  ignorant  in  Tao^se 
all  ages  has  issued  in  superstitions   of  a  common  suPersti- 

tions  be- 

type.    They  have  afforded  abundant  material  for  sa-  long  to 
tirists  and  comedians;  nor  have  Juvenals  and  Lu-  typescom' 

mon  to  all 

cians  been  wanting  to  any  civilization,  when  these  religions. 


904  BELIEFS. 

delusions  have  reached  the  excesses  to  which  they  tend. 
In  China  those  of  the  Tao-sse  priests  are  as  much  ridiculed 
even  among  the  theatre-goers  of  the  lower  class,  to  say 
How  nothing  of  the  educated,  as  they  would  be  in  civi- 
treated  Hzed  nations  of  the  West.  While  the  Sung  rulers 
educated  treated  them  with  respect,  it  required  but  a  change 
class.  o£  dynasty  to  show  the  nation  making  merry  over 
their  absurdity.1  Their  fatalism  is  not  only  contrary  to  the 
spirit  of  Chinese  literature,  but  eminently  to  Lao-tse  him- 
self. Talismans,  elixirs,  divinations,  spirit  manifestations 
and  possessions  are  common  phenomena  of  religious  his- 
tory in  all  the  principal  races.  As  Mongolian,  their  physi- 
ognomy here  is  peculiar,  showing  strong  family  likeness  to 
Special  the  habits  of  all  tribes  of  Central  Asia  and  North- 
tra°"sgi°nian  eastern  Europe,  and  even  to  those  of  the  primi- 
them.  tive  inhabitants  of  Chaldea  and  Babylonia,  whose 
sacred  writings,  as  _now  read  in  the  cuneiform  tablets  of 
Kouyoundjik,  are  supposed  to  prove,  by  these  resem- 
blances, their  Mongolian  origin.2  What  most  distin- 
guishes the  Tao-sse  is  the  spiritual  and  ethical  interest 
which  has  sifted  these  rude  traditions  of  the  race,  or  re- 
fined them  into  forms  consistent  with  civilized  life.  And 
this  we  must  ascribe  to  the  doctrine  of  Tao.  For  the 
poetic  development  of  Mongolian  fetichism  we  must  look 
not  to  China  but  to  Finland,  whose  wonderful  epic  shows 
the  aesthetic  qualities  of  which  the  race  was  capable.3 

1  Schott,  Chin.  Litgesck.,  p.  36.          2  See  Lenormant,  Les  Origines  Accadiennes,  1874. 
8  Castren,  Finn.  Mythologie. 


V. 


PHILOSOPHY. 


PHILOSOPHY. 


THE  Y-KING. 

r  I  ^HE  initial  word  of  all  Chinese  speculative  science  is  the 
-^-  Y-king,  or  "Book  of  Transformations."  The  Causes  of 
native  authorities  call  it  the  source  whence  all  the  repuTe^f 
other  Classics  proceed.  It  is  certainly  the,  thread  the  Y-king. 
on  which  the  national  culture  is  strung,  reappearing  through 
every  epoch  and  system,  including  the  reconstruction  of 
philosophy  by  Tcheou-tsze  and  Chu-hi,  for  whom  its  mean- 
ing is  as  profound  as  for  Confucius  and  Lao-tse.  Even 
Chi-hwang-ti,  who  burned  all  the  other  Classics,  respected 
the  Y-king.  There  are  obvious  grounds  for  this  preference. 
In  its  simplest  form,  it  is  undoubtedly  the  oldest  of  the 
symbolic  books.  The  primitive  instinct  of  the  Mongolian 
is  for  divinatory  methods  of  questioning  Nature,  which,  as 
poised  between  opposites,  require  a  dualistic  conception 
of  unseen  powers  ;  and  such  a  conception  forms  the  basis 
of  the  Y-king,  embodied  in  the  simplest  and  the  most  con- 
centrated of  symbols.  The  identity  of  the  abstract  with 
the  concrete,  which  we  have  found  everywhere  determining 
the  Chinese  mind,  was  nowhere  so. compactly  signified  as 
in  these  two  primitive  diagrams  of  wholeness  and  TheDia. 

division   ( ).out  of   whose   combinations  grams  of 

and  permutations  its  speculative  faculty  has  evolved 

the  whole  constitution  of  Nature  and  man.     What  has  been 

made  of  these  images  may  be  inferred  from  the  enthusi- 


908  BELIEFS. 

astic  descriptions  by  the  French  missionaries,  the  most 
scholarly  of  whom,  says  of  the  Y-king  :  "  It  is  the  ency- 
clopaedia of  Chinese  metaphysics,  physics,  and  morals ; 
treating  Nature  more  metaphysically  than  physically,  by 
certain  universal  principles  ;  and  for  morality,  dealing  with 
it  thoroughly,  forgetting  nothing  which  relates  to  the  life 
of  man,  whether  as  individual,  father  of  family,  or  mem- 
ber of  the  State." 1  The  Hi-tse,  or  commentary  on  the 
Y-king,  generally  ascribed  to  Confucius,  says  of  the  dia- 
grams :  — 

"  Their  name  is  insignificant,  their  method  great.  Their  meaning 
is  far  off  in  the  heights  ;  their  sentences  are  the  beauty  of  imagery. 
This  book  is  the  station  whence  the  wise  sounds  the  depths  and 
discovers  the  secrets."2 

The  Y-king  properly  consists  of  four  parts. 

I.  Sixty-four  double-ternary  combinations  of  the  two 

Elements  primitive  forms  of  line  ( — )  ;  their  three 

Yktn"  Pai"ts  being  arranged  in  as  many  ways  as  possible, 
i.  Thetri-  and  forming  eight  trigrammes  (kotia) ;  which  are 
grammes,  again  combined  by  transposition  into  sixty-four 
hexagrammes.  To  these  last  constructions  names  have 
been  given  representing  the  elements  and  phenomena  of 
Nature,  heaven,  earth,  fire,  vapor,  wind,  water,  mountains, 
&c. ;  based  apparently  on  subtle  meanings  of  the  two  forms 
of  line,  and  on  the  manner  in  which  they  are  combined  in 
each  case.  This  portion  is  ascribed  to  the  mythical  Fo-hi 
as  a  revelation  of  the  secret  law  of  heaven  and  earth. 

1  Le  Pere  Visdelou,  missionary  at  Pondicherry  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

2  It  is  curious,  if  Confucius  be  the  author  of  the  Hi-tse,  that  we  find  so  little  reference  to  it 
in  his  conversations,  while  Lao-tse  and  Mencius  never  mention  it  at  all.     The  Lunyu  says  he 
"  talked  much  of  the  '  Books  of  Odes,'  '  History,'  and   '  Propriety  ;'  but  says  nothing  of  the 
Y-king,  save  in  one  passage  of  which  the  translation  is  doubtful.     '  If  some  years  were  given 
to  my  life,  I  would  give  fifty  to  the  study  of  the  Y,'"  (Lunyu,  VII.  16).    The  sentence  may  have 
been  a  tribute  to  the  political  ethics  of  Wan-wang,  author  of   the   expository  part  of  the 
work.    From  Confucius  or  Mencius  you  could  not  learn  that  the  eight  koua  or  their  divinations 
had  ever  existed.     But  the  tradition  that  ascribes  the  Hi-tse  to  the  former  sage  shows  that  he 
was  regarded  as  its  endorser. 


THE    Y-KING.  909 

II.  Sentences  of  obscure  meaning  attached  to  these  hexa- 
grammes  ;  ascribed  to  Wan-wang,  the  deliverer  of  n.  The 
the  nation  from  the  tyrannical  dynasty  of  Shang  *^^ 
in  the  twelfth  century  B.C.  ;  and  supposed  to  have  wan?. 
an  occult  relation  to  this  revolution,  which  he  was  project- 
ing while  in  prison.     In  these  are  believed  to  be  veiled  all 
the  mysteries  of  righteous  government. 

III.  Other  texts  of  similar  character,  but  sixfold  in  num- 
ber, interweaving   moral   and   political   wisdom   in   in:  The 
aphorisms  of   amazing  brevity,  and  equally  amaz-  Tch™u°f 
ing  ambiguity.     These   are  the   bequest  of   "  the  kung. 
Great   Duke,"    Tcheou-kung,  the  son  of   Wan-wang,  and 
the  Solomon  of  Chinese  tradition. 

IV.  A  host  of  commentaries,  certainly  many  centuries 
later  in  origin  than  the  trigrammes  or  the  senten-  IV  The 
ces.     And  here  we   find   the  expansion    of  these  commen- 
Chinese  runes  into  the  whole  physico-ethical  sci- 
ence of  the  nation. 

The  whole  forms  a  vast  system  of  naturalism,  a  phi- 
losophy of  matter,  morals,  government,  and  religion,  cen- 
tring in  the  balance  of  opposites,  the  mystic  potencies  of 
the  Yang  and  Yin. 

What  this  cabala  of  texts  may  have  been  meant  to  sig- 
nify, and  what  connection  they  have  with  the  tri-  original 
grammes  to  which  they  are  attached,  are  questions  meaning  of 
not  easy  to  determine.  The  Chinese  theory  is 
that  the  trigrammes  are  emblems,  in  each  of 
which  the  relative  position  of  the  whole  and  broken  lines, 
interpreted  respectively  as  the  perfect-odd-hard  and  the 
imperfect-even-soft,  represent  the  stages  of  human  life, 
the  forms  of  destiny,  the  oppositions  of  character,  and  the 
generations  and  corruptions  of  Nature.  Thus  the  tri- 
gramme  of  mountain,  placed  under  that  of  earth,  means 
great  men  who  by  humility  place  themselves  below  others, 
however  inferior.  "  By  such  examples,"  adds  Visclelou, 


910 


BELIEFS. 


"  one  can  easily  conceive  what  excellent  doctrine  on  morals 
the  philosophers  draw  from  this  book."  But  such  obvious 
relations  as  these  are  seldom  apparent  as  uniting  the  tri- 
grammes  with  the  texts,  and  the  key  to  the  connection  is 
by  no  means  easy  to  seize. 

Nor  do  the  sentences,  of  themselves,  convey  any  of  the 
NO  a  a-  physical  or  metaphysical  theories  that  have  been 
rent  con-  read  out  of  them.  There  is  not  a  reference  to 
these"-0  Wan-wang  nor  to  Tcheou-kung.  There  is  not  a 
tences  passage  in  which  any  historical  allusion  whatever 

with  them.     .  .     »  -  ^T. 

is  apparent.  There  is  not  even  a  mention  of  Yin 
and  Yang,  nor  a  sign  that  the  two  forms  of  line  were  based 
on  these  two  speculative  principles.  The  names  and  inter- 
pretations attached  to  the  trigrammes  can  have  been  only 
the  gradual  product  of  long  incubation  over  the  diagrams, 
which  afforded  a  point  of  attachment  for  divination  on  the 
one  hand,  and  for  speculation  on  the  other.  Originally 
employed  for  the  former  purpose,  like  the  divining  rods 
A  book  of  and  the  tortoise-shell,  they  would  naturally  become 
tlon  associated  with  a  body  of  oracular  or  proverbial 
sentences  descriptive  of  duties  and  virtues,  and  hinting 
rules  of  choice  in  conduct,  to  be  used  in  interpreting  their 
decision  ;  and  the  mutual  influence  of  these  two  elements 
may  have  developed  both  into  the  present  systematic  form. 
The  part  of  Tcheou-kung  may  have  been  to  turn  these 
turned  into  sentences  to  the  purpose  of  political  divination  or 
po™tSd  instruction,  furthering  his  appeal  to  the  people  by 
manual,  basing  it  on  current  religious  beliefs  ;  and  perhaps 
to  contribute  new  aphorisms  of  similar  purport. 

It  is  difficult  to  resist  the  impression  that  these  puzzling 
monograms  are  mere  cards  of  the  fortune-teller,  to  determine 
the  choice  between  different  lines  of  conduct,  or  to  report 
presages  of  disaster  or  success.  What  other  meaning  can 
be  given  to  the  strange  phraseology  of  the  Latin  translation, 
with*  its  ever-recurring  burden  of  "nullum  est  malum  ;  " 


THE   Y-KING.  QII 

"  nulla  est  culpa  ;  "  "  est  locus  poenitendi ;  "  "  bonum   (or 
pessimum)  est  ;  "   "  oportet  ut  hoc  est  solidum  "  ? 1 

Many  facts  go  to  show  this  to  be  the  true  origin  of  the 
koua.  The  Li-ki  refers  to  the  Y-king  as  a  book  of  divina- 
tion. There  are  legends  of  the  use  of  a  work  for  this  pur- 
pose by  Wan-wang.2  The  word  koua  is  formed  in  part 
from  a  character  signifying  lot.  It  was  because  it  belonged 
in  the  list  of  books  either  on  agriculture,  medicine,  or 
divination,  that  the  Y-king  was  spared  by  Chi-hwang-ti. 
It  does  not  interfere  with  this  view  that  tradition  repre- 
sents the  koua  as  being  originally  of  different  colors,  and 
suspended  in  public  places  to  indicate  laws  and  ceremonies 
for  the  observance  of  the  people  ;  since  their  mysterious 
powers  in  divination  made  them  specially  useful  for  the 
political  effects  required. 

In  ascribing  this  system  of  combinations  to  Fo-hi's  ob- 
servation of  figures  written  on  the  back  of  a  dragon-  Relation 
horse,  and  of  the  forms  of  heaven  and  earth  and  to  F°-hi- 
living  creatures,   nothing  else  can  be  intended  than  that 
they  are   the   compendious    secret   of   Nature  ;    and  that 
their  meaning,  as  elements  of   Chinese  civilization,  is   so 
profound    that   they   are   to   be   identified,   like   marriage 
and  family  ties  and  the  art  of  writing,  with  its   reputed 
founder. 

Here  then  we  penetrate  to  the  germs  of  Chinese  culture. 
The  preservation  of  these  primitive  symbols  of 

J  Scientific 

natural   antithesis  through  every  step  of   the  na-  and  phiio- 
tional  progress  for  thousands  of  years  enables  us 
to  realize  how  much  is  involved  in  the  crude  in- 
stinct  of  divination,  when  it  seizes  the  most  obvi- 

1  That  of  Pere  Regis,  edited  by  Mohl  (German),  is  at  present  the  only  available  version. 
The  coming  translation  by  Dr.  Legge  is  looked  for  with  the  greater  interest,  as  likely  to  supply 
a  lack  which  prescribes  great  diffidence  in  submitting,  at  the  present  stage,  any  account  of  this 
extraordinary  classic. 

2  Mem.  cone,  les  Chinois,  II.  pp.  44-45.     Ampere,  Science  en  Orient,  p.  103. 


QI2  BELIEFS. 

ous  intuitions  and  experiences,  translates  them  into  im- 
ages, and  applies  these  with  confidence  as  a  key  to  the 
interpretation  of  Nature  and  the  fortunes  of  men.  The 
physical  and  moral  world  are  here  recognized  as  in  inti- 
mate relation,  and  human  conditions  conceived  as  in  some 
way  a  result  of  universal  law.  Of  all  systems  of  divina- 
tion, the  Y-king  must  be  admitted  to  present  the  simplest 
and  most  rational  type.  It  is  altogether  free  from  the  pre- 
scriptive details  of  rite  and  ceremony,  and  the  semi-bar- 
simpie  barous  spirit  common  to  most  of  these  systems, 
naturalism.  Uri^e  the  Atharva  Veda,  and  the  newly  discov- 
ered magic  of  the  "  Sumerians "  (or  "  Accadians  ")  of 
Chaldea,  or  the  corresponding  portions  of  the  Avesta,  it  is 
without  religious  mythology ;  is  guiltless  of  all  allusion  to 
god  or  demon,  and  stands  in  the  utmost  simplicity  of  posi- 
tive naturalism.  It  knows  no  poetic  impulse ;  no  hymn  nor 
prayer;  only  rigid  symbols  with  their  verbal  keys.  Chinese 
philosophy  consists  of  the  evolution  of  such  a  cosmical 
conception  as  this  ;  and  the  continuity  of  its  hold  on  the 
primal  symbols  proves  the  consecutiveness  of  the  national 
mind. 

Whatever  occult  meanings  may  have  been  ascribed  to 

Based  on     these  "  diagrams  of  Fo-hi,"  in  Chinese  thought  they 

on^f"     nave  always  represented  the  simplicity  and  univer- 

umty  to      sality  of  natural  laws.     If  reading  the  greatest  in 

diversity.       ^    j^^  ^  CQmplex    jn    ^Q    Simple,   the  whole    ill 

the  atom,  the  one  in  the  different,  the  law  in  the  phenom- 
ena, is  the  process  of  science  and  religion,  that  process  is 
surely  foreshadowed  in  a  physical,  moral,  philosophical,  and 
political  system  deduced  from  a  continuous  and  a  broken 
line,  as  symbols  of  all  pervading  principles.  Chosen  at 
first  as  natural  types  of  the  contrasts  of  odd  and  even, 
light  and  shadow,  male  and  female,  heaven  and  earth,  up- 
per and  lower,  dry  and  moist,  hard  and  soft,  complete  and 
incomplete,  —  perhaps,  as  some  traditions  say,  preceded 


THE    Y-KING.        ,  913 

by  other  symbols  of  like  purport,  such  as  black  and  white 
squares,  as  we  know  them  to  have  been  followed  by  squares 
of  numerical  relation,1  —  their  substantial  meaning  has 
been  the  relation  of  unity  to  difference  as  ground  of  that 
composition  of  elements  by  which  each  being  and  thing 
becomes  what  it  is.  Out  of  this  relation  the  Chinese  might 
well  build  their  whole  philosophy  and  faith.2  It  is  so  pro- 
lific and  comprehensive  for  them,  not  because  of  their 
lack  of  a  better,  but  by  reason  of  its  own  validity  as  the 
constant  postulate  of  all  really  philosophical  thought. 

The  dualistic  or  polar  principle,  of  which  the  Y-king  is  a 
development,  is  not  of  physical  but  mainly  of  meta-  The  polar 
physical  origin.  Its  real  root  is  not  in  this  or  that 
opposition  of  elements  which  it  may  be  taken  to 
explain,  nor  in  all  such  oppositions  together  ;  but  in  the 
twofoldness  inherent  in  human  consciousness,  whether  as 
the  sense  of  inward  and  outward,  of  me  and  not-me,  of 
positive  and  negative,  good  and  evil,  right  and  wrong,  as 
implying  each  other,  which  is  too  constant  and  fundamen- 
tal to  be  wholly  unperceived  at  any  stage  of  mental  activ- 
ity. The  chief  productive  force  in  all  religious  mythology, 
it  seized  on  the  fact  of  sex  as  omnipresent  in  or-  Antithesis 
ganic  life,  with  special  ardor,  and  gave  it  that  ofsex> 
antithetical  meaning  suggested  in  generation  as  the  con- 
trast of  active  and  passive,  of  creative  and  receptive, 
which  it  bears  in  all  ancient  thought.  So  that,  in  this  their 
most  prominent  cosmical  feature,  the  Yang  and  Yin  of 
the  Y-king  correspond  with  the  symbolism  of  the  more 
emotional  and  poetic  races.3 

Unity  in  diversity,  the  growth  of  life  through  balance  of 
polar  forces,  had  thus  its  Bibles  before  reaching  its  Organon 

1  In  the  "  Round  Table  of  Fo-hi"  various  elements  of  mystic  meaning  are  arranged  in 
a  circle  with  the  sixty-four  hexagrammes,  and  used  for  popular  horoscopy. 

2  On  the  various  attempts  of  Chinese  writers  to  explain  the  fCoua,  see  Wylie,  p.  175  ; 
Mohl's  Y-king,  p.  80  ;   Pauthier  in  Journ.  Asiat.,  September  and  October,  1867. 

3  The  Shu-king  speaks  of  Heaven  and  Earth  as  Father  and  Mother ;  V.  B.  i.  Pt.  I.  iii .     So 
Rigveda,  I.  89. 

58 


914  BELIEFS. 

based  on  pure  induction.  It  constructed  ethics  and  divi- 
Historic  nation  on  its  way  to  the  physical  and  metaphysi- 
ca]  sciences.  And  so,  from  the  augur's  rods  and 


the  arrows,  that  made  the  world  a  revelation  of  pre- 


sages  for  every  Asiatic  and  European  tribe,1  up  to 
the  latest  philosophy  of  Germany  or  England,  there  runs 
through  every  stage  in  the  interpretation  of  Nature  a 
sense  of  the  world  as  a  whole,  of  fixed  laws  and  methods 
interwoven  with  each  other  and  with  the  life  of  man  as 
the  inner  purport  of  things.2 

This  sense  of  universal  relations  reaches  a  higher  point 
its  sense  m  tne  Y~king  than  in  any  other  of  these  ancient 
of  univer-  Bibles  of  the  divining  art.  The  books  of  the  au- 

gurs  —  Chaldean,  Accadian,3  Etruscan,  Roman  — 


o"  were  collections  of  rules  for  interpreting  natural 
divina-  phenomena,  —  a  pseudo-science  of  signs  and  pre- 
sages. The  Y-king,  as  it  has  been  transmitted 
for  a  period  of  from  two  to  three  thousand  years,  repre- 
sents a  more  advanced  stage.  It  contains  no  such  calen- 
dar or  sign-table  ;  its  diagrams  are  employed  abstractly 
and  philosophically,  as  a  kind  of  algebra  of  ethical  and 
political  laws  ;  and  the  sentences  attached  to  them  are 
axioms  for  the  guidance  of  public  and  private  conduct. 
Here  are  a  few  of  the  practical  commonplaces  supposed 
to  be  conveyed  in  this  symbolic  language  of  the  straight 
and  broken  lines  :  — 

How  wide  extends  the  order  of  heaven  !  The  wise  ever  watches 
Maxims  of  over  himself,  for  he  has  much'  to  fear.  To  shut  tight  the 
the  Y-k'mg.  sack,  and  withdraw  in  time  of  public  peril,  is  ignominious. 
He  works  out  his  task,  as  if  with  a  needle.  Have  hope,  when  in  desert 
places.  Use  common  things  for  aid.  Seek  not  help  from  the  foolish. 

1  Illustrations  in  Lenormant  on  "Divination"  (ch.  ii.). 

2  Diodorus  describes  the  Chaldean  diviners  as  believing  that  nothing  in  heaven  or  earth 
was  from  chance,  but  all  fixed  in  a  Divine  order  ;  and  that  the  world  is  without  beginning  or 
end  (Biblioth.,  II.  30). 

8  Fragments  of  these  are  now  produced  from  the  monuments,  and  described  by  Smith, 
Sayce,  Lenormant,  and  others.  For  the  Tuscan  books  ascribed  to  Tages  (lawgiver),  see  Pliny 
(Nat.  Hist.,  II.  53)  and  Cicero  (De  Divinatione,  II.  23). 


THE    Y-KING.  915 

Every  thing  has  its  fitness  ;  in  every  motion  humility.  Administer 
government  like  a  rock.  If  armies  go  forth,  let  law  follow.  Haste  to 
be  great,  and  slowness  to  move,  are  roads  to  repentance.  Women,  if 
steadfast,  are  to  be  honored.  Detained  by  boys,  one  loses  grown 
men.  He  has  charge  of  his  father's  and  mother's  misfortunes.  Look- 
ing at  life,  he  acts  and  refrains  from  action.  In  adversity,  persevere. 
The  steadfast  confirms  our  virtue  by  his  sympathy.  The  wise  looks  to 
his  own  experience,  and  errs  not.  The  minister  should  be  held  by  the 
king  as  a  guest.  Punishment  is  a  necessity.  The  yoke  checks  the 
young  bull.  It  is  good  for  the  king  to  sacrifice  to  Shang-te. 

This  is  the  gnomic  wisdom  of  a  practical  and   patient 
race  of  workers  ;  its  spirit  is  more  cheerful  than  Rise  {rom 
Hesiod  or  Theognis,  and   more  disinterested  than  augury  to 
the  Hebrew  Proverbs  or  the  shopkeeping  lore  of 
"  Poor  Richard."     Obscure  allusions  to  animals,  bodily  01 
gans,  rites,  customs,  domestic  relations,  are  not  wanting ; 
but  there  are  no  prognostics  from  natural  phenomena  :  and 
though  the  hexagrammes   retain   their   elementary    titles, 
these  physical  relations  are  evidently  lifted  from  the  plane 
of  augury  to  that  of  ethics,  while  much  of  the  phraseology 
of  their  first  purpose  is,  as  we  have  seen,  retained. 

But  it  is  probable  that  the  Y-king  has  been  further 
worked  over  for  the  use,  perhaps  in  part  divin-  to  politic*; 
atory,  of  political  rulers.  Both  its  apparent  character,  and 
the  analogy  of  most  other*  Chinese  classical  works,  suggest 
that  it  has  gravitated  to  administrative  ends.  Such  elabo- 
ration is  rendered  still  more  probable  by  its  extreme  com- 
pactness. There  are  in  the  whole  text  only  one  hundred 
and  seventy-one  distinct  words.  And  the  very  structure 
of  these  materials  is  ideal  ;  the  first  four  forming  a  table  of 
moral  perfections,  of  which  the  whole  book  is  illustrative, 
and  which  is  continually  repeated,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
so  as  to  give  unity  to  the  otherwise  disconnected  say- 
ings. The  "  Confucian "  commentary  describes 
the  figures  as  "  teaching,"  by  successions  of  lines, 
a  wise  diligence  in  the  management  of  affairs,  of 


916 


BELIEFS. 


whose  changes  these  growths  and  decays  of  Nature  are 
images."  1  Thus  purely  moral  and  political  interpretations 
are  added  to  the  cosmico-ethical  and  mythical.  This  prac- 
tical  and  philosophical  development  of  Chinese 
divination  is  in  striking  contrast  with  the  outcome 
with  the  of  the  world-famous  Chaldeo-Babylonian  augury  ; 
with  tnose  gold-and-silver  plated  idols  which  the 
Hebrew  exiles  were  bidden  to  despise,  "  as  knowing 
them  to  be  no  gods  by  the  bright  purple  that  rotted  upon 
them  ;  by  the  hands  that  held  dagger  and  axe,  yet  could 
not  deliver  themselves  from  war  and  thieves  ;  by  their 
having  no  power  to  curse  or  bless,  nor  to  show  signs  in  the 
heavens,  nor  to  set  up  a  ruler,  nor  to  send  rain,  nor  to  show 
mercy  to  the  fatherless  and  weak."  2 

In  fact  the  Hi-tse  refers  the  Yang  and  Yin  to  universal  in- 
Testimon  teln&ence  conceived  as  order  and  law.  They  "  pro- 
of the  ceed  from  the  T'ai-ki  (ultimate  limit),  as  a  fixed 
"tse"  method  and  path ;  which  is  called  Tao,  or  Rea- 
son. As  in  human  action  methods  proceed  from  a  fixed 
principle  —  the  heart  —  so  the  way  of  Heaven  and  Earth."  3 
Thence  follows  a  polarity  of  which  all  Nature  is  the  expres- 
sion. The  Yang  is  everywhere  the  motive,  initial  force ; 
the  Yin  the  receptive  and  completing.  Heaven  and  Earth 
are  higher  and  lower,  motion  and  rest,  male  and  female ; 
and  the  combinations  of  these  opposites  reveal  what  is  good 
and  what  evil.  Heaven  produces  the  types  ;  Earth  incor- 
porates them  in  the  changes  of  growth  and  decay.  By 
mutual  action  of  the  strong  (Yang)  and  the  weak  (Yin) 
come  generation  and  corruption."  4 

The  Hi-tse  regards  all  this  as  existing  for  the  sake  of 
morality.  Nature  is  read,  divined,  described,  in  order  to 
"  make  clear  the  distinction  of  good  and  evil."  5  It  is  a 

1  Hi-tse,  XIII.  2;  XXII.  s- 

2  Epistle  of  Jeremy,  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  the  Apocryphal  Book  of  Baruch. 

8  Hi-tse,  IV.  i. ;  I.  i.  *  Ibid.,  II.  2.  c  Ibid.,  II.  i. 


THE    Y-KING.  917 

• 

system  of  symbols,  of  which  the  law  is  thought  not  only 
broad  enough  to  cover  both  moral  and  physical  relations, 
but  really  to  express  the  human  ideal,  holding  up  the 
mirror  in  which  the  noblest  part  of  man  is  reflected. 

"  In  the  subordination  of  Earth  to  Heaven  we  have  the 
symbol  of  government."1  In  other  words,  gov- Thevirtue 
ernment,  personal  or  political,  means  proportion,  of balance. 
balance,  use  of  natural  differences  for  the  unity  and  har- 
mony of  the  whole.  In  this  principle,  according  to  the 
Hi-tse,  is  the  true  criterion  as  respects  details  of  conduct 
and  choice  of  ways  ;  moral  distinctions  being  thus  referred 
to  universal  grounds  in  the  nature  of  things,  not  to  special 
revelations,  opinions,  or  calculation  of  effects.  Chinese 
philosophy  has,  in  fact,  very  little  respect  for  these  extrinsic 
tests  of  moral  judgment.  In  practice  it  may  be  quite 
otherwise  in  China,  as  well  as  in  the  rest  of  the  world. 

And  this  principle  of  balance  and   proportion,  in  which 
culture  consists,  is  further  represented  by  the^DOsi-  Man  the 
tion  of  man  in  the  universe,  whom  the  Hi-tse  places  middle 

point   twixt 

"  in  the  centre  between  Heaven  and  Earth."  :  Thus  heaven  and 
even  the  physical  order  of  things  revolves  around  earth* 
a  law  of  human  experience  and  purport.  The  Yang  and 
Yin  of  Nature  typify  that  equilibrium  of  passions  and 
powers  in  which  man  finds  his  highest  good  ;  a  conception 
far  worthier  of  philosophy  than  the  dogma  that  any  of 
these  are  absolutely  evil.  In  this  sense  the  Hi-tse  says, 
"  The  words  of  the  wise  should  be  like  the  movements  of 
Heaven  and  Earth,  which  wander  not  from  their  path."  3 

A  German  interpreter,4  idealizing  the  first  four  words  of 
the  Y-king,  translates  them  as  "  the  good,  the  fair,  An  ideal 
the  useful,  the  true,"   and  defines  it  as  the  whole  interPreta- 

tion  of  the 

object  of   the  book  to  incite  to  the  fulfilment  of  Y-king. 
these  ideals.    "  Correspondent  to  these,  each  carrying  on  the 

»  Hi-tse,  I.  8.  J  Ibid.  »  Ibid.,  VII.  5. 

4  Piper.    Zeitsck.  d.  D.  M.  G-,  III.  pp.  273-301. 


918  BELIEFS. 

preceding  to  a  new  stage,  are  the  four  seasons,  —  as  germ, 
bloom,  ripening,  and  finally  completion  ;  the  ground  of 
return  to  a  new  birth."  For  life  is  first  in  the  germ,  as 
love  ;  next  in  the  blossom,  as  free  glad  play  of  powers  ; 
next  in  the  fruit,  as  a  reconciling  justice  to  all  the  human 
powers  ;  last,  its  wisdom  as  achieved  is  the  end,  from 
which,  on  a  higher  plane,  the  evolution  will  recommence. 
"  A  presentiment  of  the  value  of  mathematical  certainty," 
he  adds,  "  and  of  the  transiency  of  the  moment,  led  these 
old  thinkers  to  conceive  images  of  actual  nature  in  super- 
sensual  ideas,  free  from  arbitrary  change  ;  welcome  land- 
marks for  man,  lifting  himself  out  of  childhood  amidst  the 
overwhelming  mass  of  details." 

Whether  this  is  too  poetic  a  version  of  the  old  riddle  for 
the  quality  of  Chinese  aesthetics,  or  not,  will  be  decided 
differently  by  different  minds  ;  but  some  warranty  for  its 
substantial  meaning  is  certainly  to  be  found  in  the  method 
of  the  commentaries.  They  carry  out  the  elemental  koua 
into  correspondences  through  the  animal  world,  the  human 
body,  the  very  plants  and  stones.  They  thoroughly  paral- 
lelize the  world  with  man.  The  Y-king  is  the  Chinese 
Swedenborg.  This  Christian  seer  did  but  fall  back  on  the 
ancient  intuition  of  an  essential  unity  between  the  material 
and  spiritual  worlds.  The  infancy  of  scientific  observations 
in  all  thoughtful  races  has  been  fond  of  demonstrating  the 
The  in-  virtues  of  proportion  and  series,  combining  the 
powers  of  numbers,  connecting  phenomena  by 


rules  of  symmetry  and  parallel  divisions.  'Tis 
an  unconscious  instinct  of  the  spiritual  nature  to  report 
its  own  rhythm  in  what  it  sees,  as  the  eye  sees  rainbows 
because  it  is  itself  an  orb.  Thus  the  Yang  and  Yin  round 
their  koua  into  circular  series.  Their  reactions  are  recog- 
nized in  all  natural  alternations,  all  repetitions  and  renewals; 
and  these  polarities  are  treated  as  cyclic  movement.  I  know 


THE    Y-KING. 

not  where  the  mind  of  man  is  found  more  strongly  pos- 
sessed by  the  sense  of  such  movement  in  life  and  Nature, 
than  in  the  philosophy  which  the  Chinese  have  built  up 
around  the  koua  of  Fo-hi. 

In  the  commentaries  to  the  Y-king,  ascribed  to  Confucius 
and  other  great  men,  is  contained  the  substance  of  those 
later  systems  which  are  most  fully  represented  in  Chu-hi. 
The  amount  of  philosophical  literature  in  the  Chinese  lan- 
guage must  be  immense,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  sketch  of 
enumerations  of  "the  Six,"  "the  Ten,"  and  "the  thephiio- 

soph  i  Ceil 

Twenty  "  who  have  founded  schools  and  discussed  literature 
systems.  The  controversies  on  human  nature  to  ofchma- 
which  the  optimism  of  Mencius  gave  rise,  and  those  pro- 
ceeding from  the  innovations  of  Wang-ngan-shih  on  Con- 
fucian doctrine  twelve  hundred  years  later,  with  those  that 
attended  the  growth  -of  Buddhism  and  the  Tao-sse  on 
rationalism  and  the  future  life,  fill  the  long  period  between 
Confucius  and  the  new  school,  which  came  to  completion 
in  Chu-hi,  recognized  as  the  highest  philosophical  authority 
by  the  modern  Chinese.  Since  his  time,  "  hosts  of  writ- 
ings "  in  this  department  have  appeared,  but  none  have 
found  equal  repute  with  his.  A  philosophical  Encyclo- 
paedia, drawn  up  by  forty-two  scholars  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  bearing  the  comprehensive  title  of  "  Ground 
Principles  and  Laws  of  Nature  "  (Tsing-li-ta-tseuen),  and 
abridged  by  Kang-hi  in  the  eighteenth,  embodies  the 
productions  of  the  school  of  Chu-hi,  derived,  we  are  told, 
from  more  than  one  hundred  and  twenty  writers,  and 
covering  all  branches  of  Chinese  science.  The  sub- 
stance of  his  speculative  philosophy  was,  however,  con- 
tained in  the  compactest  form  in  the  T'ai-kf-fu  of  his 
predecessor,  Tcheou-tse,  which  he  edited  with  an  intro- 
duction, and  systematically  developed.1 

Chu-hi's  life  (1129-1201)  was  exactly  contemporaneous 

1  German  translation,  by  G.  Von  Gabelenz,  Dresden,  1876. 


Q20  BELIEFS. 

with  that  of  Maimonides,  the  reconstructor  and  harmo- 
chu  hi's  mzer  °f  Jewish  philosophy,  and  had  a  singularly 
Life  and  analogous  function.  He  inherited  the  inspiration 
Function.  Q£  a  p[|{josopjjica|  revival  commencing  two  hundred 
years  before,  and  already  numbering  several  writers  of 
great  repute,  whose  principles  he  developed.  The  inven- 
tion of  printing,  three  centuries  previous,  had  stimulated 
inquiry,  and  provided  materials  for  studying  the  national 
literature.  The  current  idea  of  his  mental  qualities  is 
indicated  by  stories  related  of  his  boyhood.  When  his 
father,  pointing  to  the  sky,  said  to  him,  "  That  is  Heaven," 
he  replied  :  "  But  what  is  there  above  it  ?  "  At  ten  years 
of  age  he  was  impressed  by  the  saying  of  Mencius,  that 
sages  were  but  men  like  himself.  These  promises  of 
rationalistic  earnestness  and  freedom  were  followed  by  a 
manly  course  in  official  life.  As  immediate  adviser  to  the 
Emperor,  his  criticisms  in  the  matter  of  the  civil  service 
were  so  pointed  as  more  than  once  to  cause  his  expulsion 
from  office,  and  resulted  in  the  banishment  in  which  he 
died.  During  the  intervals  of  public  labors  he  composed 
works  which  have  won  for  him  the  title  of  Restorer  of 
Chinese  thought.  His  humanity  was  as  famous  as  his 
speculative  wisdom  and  personal  integrity.  He  is  credited 
with  having  stimulated  education  among  the  poor  by  insti- 
tuting instruction  in  all  useful  branches,  with  diminution 
of  taxes,  punishment  of  official  corruption,  and  enforcing 
public  aid  in  times  of  distress.  He  declined  high  posts  of 
honor  for  the  sake  of  writing  his  thoughts  on  the  T'ai-ki  and 
the  Order  of  the  world.  He  is,  in  brief,  a  Chinese  ideal 
man,  even  to  the  regularity  of  his  methods  in  thought  and 
diction  ;  and  his  following  as  a  teacher  has  been  immense. 
Yet  he  died  an  exile,  deserted  by  his  pupils ;  a  death  as 
serene  and  silent,  as  his  life  had  been  active  and  fruitful 
in  the  wisdom  of  speech.1 

1  See  Wuttke,  II.  107,  108  ;  also  Neumann,  Introd.  to  Chu-k?s  Philosophy. 


THE    Y-KING.  Q2I 

When  asked  what  is  essential  for  man,  he  replied  :  "  Care- 
fully to  seek  out  what  is  right,  and  to  put  away  what  is 
wrong.  By  rectitude  have  the  wise  acquired  their  wisdom  ; 
by  the  rectitude  of  Heaven  and  Earth  are  all  that  live." 
A  proverb  says  :  "  The  compiler  of  the  Classics  was 
Kung ;  the  expounder  of  them  is  Chu.  If  Confucius 
should  return,  he  would  not  alter  a  word  that  Chu  has 
written."  In  1241,  scarcely  a  generation  after  his  death, 
his  tablet  was  placed,  by  edict,  in  the  temples  of  Confucius 
throughout  China. 

Neumann  compactly  describes  his  work  as  follows  : l  — 

"  Chu-hi  is  the  Aristotle  of  the  Middle  Kingdom.  His  writings 
embrace  the  whole  faith  and  science  of  his  nation,  treating  specially 
and  systematically  of  every  branch  therein.  He  prepared  an  Index 
to  the  great  histories  of  Sse-ma-kwang  and  Lieou-schu,  and  arranged 
the  *  Four  Books  '  in  the  order  in  which  they  now  stand.  He  wrote 
text-books,  books  on  the  art  of  government,  on  laws,  language,  morals, 
and  poetry.  A  review  of  his  works  would  be  a  true  picture  of  Chinese 
civilization." 

Besides  the  commentaries  that  contain  the  most  widely 
recognized  exposition  of  the  Classics,  among  which  that 
on  the  Y-king  is  in  peculiar  honor,  Chu-hi  is  author  of  the 
Siao-hiao,  used  throughout  the  empire  as  text-book  in  the' 
schools,  and  of  a  standard  treatise  on  Education  ;  so  that  he, 
more  than  any  other,  may  be  called  the  framer  of  the  actual 
Chinese  mind,  so  far  as  it  is  framed  by  special  educational 
methods  and  materials.  In  accomplishing  his  work  of 
bringing  to  philosophical  order  and  relation  the  doctrines 
of  previous  philosophers,  he  has  certainly  made  himself 
the  centre  of  national  interest  and  culture.  He  has  shown 
that  in  China,  as  in  Europe,  a  great  man  concentrates  his 
whole  people,  lifts  them  to  focal  intensity,  and  immensely 
simplifies  the  task  of  other  races  or  ages  in  acquiring  de- 

1  Introduction  to  Chu-h?  s  Philosophy. 


922 


BELIEFS. 


tailed  acquaintance  with  their  literary  treasures,  however 
colossal. 

His  pupils  wrote  down  his  words,  and  their  records  were 
published,  witTim  a  quarter  of  a  century  from  his  death,  in 
books  compiled  from  earlier  separate  works,  to  which  many 
were  added  ;  and  the  whole  was  embodied  in  the  Tsing-li- 
ta-tseuen,  before  mentioned,  —  the  Natural  Philosophy  of 
China  in  the  fifteenth  century.1 

With  aid  from  the  works  referred  to  below,  and  the  notes 
and  dictionaries  treating  of  philosophical  productions  among 
the  Chinese,  I  shall  now  endeavor  to  construct  an  exposi- 
tion of  the  system  of  which  the  Y-king  is  the  beginning, 
and  Chu-hi  the  completion.  This  will  involve  a  view  of 
the  relation  of  philosophy  to  the  characteristics  of  Chinese 
mind  as  already  described,  and  afford  the  crowning  illustra- 
tion of  its  genius  and  results. 


philosophy? 


METAPHYSICS. 

CAN  we  properly  use  the  term  Chinese  philosophy  in  a 
is  there  a,    generic  sense  ?     Is  philosophy  itself  divisible  ac- 
cording  to  nationalities  ?     It  is  obvious  that  while 

.  . 

the  problems  with  which  it  deals  are  common  to 
human  experience,  and  while  its  ultimate  purpose  is  always 
to  satisfy  the  demand  of  man  for  a  rational  conception  of 
his  relations  to  the  universe,  the  ways  in  which  these  ma- 
terials are  associated  must  depend  very  much  on  race-qual- 
ities and  conditions,  and  even  on  national  ones.  If  each 

1  For  accounts  of  Chu-hi's  life  and  works,  see  Chinese  Repos.  for  April,  1844  ;  Schott's 
Chines.  Lit.,  pp.  50-52;  Meadows'  s  Ghinese  and  their  Rebellions;  Neumann's  Transl.  of 
Chu-hfs  Philos.  of  Nature,  Leipsic,  1837;  Carre'  sL'Ancien  Orient.,  I.  462-64  ;  'Wuttke,  II. 
107,  108;  Sommer,  Grundsatze  d.  neu.  phil.  d.  Chin,  in  Erman's  Russ.  Arch.,  xiv.  Thai- 
kih-tuh  d.  Tscheou-tsi  ntit  Tschu-hPs  Cotnmentare,  by  Von  der  Gabelentz,  1876  ;  Julien's 
notes  to  the  Tao-te-king. 


METAPHYSICS.  923 

people  has  distinctive  characteristics  which  make  it  a  social 
unit,  its  philosophy  and  religion,  which  are  simply  its  cur- 
rent method  of  thought  and  its  ideal  of  aspiration,  should 
possess  an  equally  distinctive  form.  When  we  come  to  the 
broader  race-distinctions,  —  Aryan,  Shemitic,  Mongolic, 
whether  linguistically  or  physically  determined,  —  the  pos- 
sibility of  such  differences  becomes  a  prime  necessity  of 
historical  science. 

The  Chinese  constitute  not  only  a  national  but  a  race 
type,  and  nothing  can  be  more  strongly  marked  than  its 
uniformity  and  self-consistency  ;  a  mental  physiognomy  as 
positive  as  the  Mongol  visage.  The  nature  of  this  type 
has  been  presented  in  the  preceding  chapters,  of  which 
there  remains  to  be  considered  the  philosophical  aspect 
and  meaning. 

For  these  general  reasons,  as  well  as  from  the  facts  now 
to  be  offered,  we  must  reject  the  prevailing  opinion 
that  philosophy  began  with  the  Greeks,  and  that  the 
Chinese  were  incapable  of  it,  as  never  having  ad-  Greeks? 
vanced  beyond  the  instinctive  or  "  homogeneous  "  stage  of 
mind.1  Supposing  this  last  statement  correct,  the  conclu- 
sion would  by  no  means  follow,  except  upon  a  very  narrow 
view  of  philosophical  evolution.  Every  stage  of  Function 
human  progress  must  have  its  own  method  of  con-  ofthe 
ceiving  man's  relation  to  himself  and  the  world  ; 
and  even  the  stage  of  social  childhood,  if  repre-  chi!dhood- 
sented  by  a  great  and  multiplying  race,  and  expanded  in  a 
civilization  of  three  thousand  years,  must  have  constructive 
habits  and  principles  of  thinking.  The  function  of  such  a 
race  would  naturally  prove  analogous  to  that  of  the  instincts 
of  childhood  in  the  individual,  to  nourish  elements  of  the 
maturest  manhood,  whose  maintenance  throughout  life  is  a 
condition  of  healthful  growth  ;  perceptions  to  which  it  will 

1  See  especially  Hegel,  who  seems  to  me  in  this,  as  in  many  other  matters,  to  draw  his 
data  from  popular  beliefs  and  historical  prejudices;  as  also  from  the  exigencies  of  formula 


924 


BELIEFS. 


be  the  crown  of  a  higher  culture  to  return,  on  another 
curve  in  the  "spiral  of  progress." 

There  are,  however,  important  respects  in  which  the  term 
Maturer  childhood  is  wholly  inapplicable  to  Chinese  civiliza- 
eiements  fon  jtg  jmmense  duration  must  have  given  it,  on 

of  Chinese 

experience,  its  own  ground,  a  maturer  experience  than  more 
brilliantly  self-conscious  and  versatile  ones.  There  are  pri- 
mal instincts  to  which  human  development  is  found  to  bring 
justification,  and  whose  prominence  in  these  persistent 
patriarchalists  is  at  least  a  prophecy,  even  if  unfulfilled,  of 
the  conclusions  of  science.  So  their  intuitions  of  natural 
law  participate  in  the  promise  of  unity  which  now  inspires 
the  nations.  In  this  respect,  Chinese  philosophy  is  well 
worth  recognition. 

We  note  its  permanent  freedom  from  certain  contrarie- 
ties which  have  beset  the  understandings  of  other  races, 
and  which  their  own  maturer  science  is  found  to  dissolve. 

I.  Chinese  philosophy  has  no  account  to  settle  with 
i.  NO  an-  religion  as  with  a  separate  and  rival  authority, 
tagonism  Between  these  spheres  there  is  here  not  only  no 

ofphilos-  ...... 

ophyand  antagonism,  but  properly  no  distinction  ;  inasmuch 
5iigion;  as  re}igion  has  not  instituted  itself  as  an  ab  extra 
iidityof  legislation  to  supply  the  defects  of  human  reason, 
50n>  whether  political  or  personal.  Even  the  national 
religious  rites  are  simply  symbolic  expressions  of  its  char- 
acteristic constant  mode  of  conceiving  man's  relation  to 
Nature  and  life  ;  with  no  pretence  of  differing,  either  'in 
origin,  process,  or  authority,  from  familiar  and  secular  lines 
of  thought.  Chinese  philosophy  recognizes  no  objective 
sphere  of  knowledge  beyond  the  cosmical  laws,  spiritual 
and  material,  as  immediately  apprehended  by  the  human 
mind.  It  maintains  the  validity  of  man's  natural  reason 
and  conscience,  as  incapable  of  such  perversion  as  could 
break  their  inherent  relation  to  truth,  or  render  them  im- 
potent for  acquiring  and  organizing  it. 


METAPHYSICS. 

Hence  there  can  be  no  question  of  supremacy  between 
reason  and  faith  ;  since  faith  itself  is  simply  nat-  Nostrife 
ural  confidence   in  a  rational  order  of  the  world,  between 
That  this  testimony  should  be  supplanted  by  an  in-  [^7  the 
fallible  communication  from  without  is  inconceiv-  object  of 
able  to  the  Chinese  mind  ;  so  strong  its  perception  ra!ionai 


that  all  "  communication  "  to  man  must  ultimately 
resolve  itself  into  the  operation  of  his  own  facul- 
ties on  the  truth  of  the  world. 

Here  is  a  people  with  hardly  an  idea  of  "  supernatural 
revelation  "  in  the  Shemitic  and  Christian  sense  ;  :  no  reli- 
gious law  but  the  interpretation  of  life  and  Nature  by  the 
human  ideal,  by  the  course  of  events,  by  the  flow  of  causes 
and  effects.  Its  koua  symbols  do  not  come,  like  the  Mosaic 
Tables,  from  out  the  thunder  and  lightning  of  a  descending 
God,  nor  like  the  Christian  dispensation  in  miraculous 
prophecy  and  world-compelling  divine  commission  ;  but 
quietly  issue  from  a  river,  in  the  form  of  inscription  on  a 
dragon-horse  as  the  ideal  animal,  and  are  read  by  Fo-hi 
as  he  walks,  studying  the  natural  forms  of  things  and  crea- 
tures. And  these  symbols,  even  considered  as  communi- 
cations from  a  higher  sphere  than  man,  are  abstract  and 
simple  in  the  extreme  ;  leaving  to  human  discovery,  natural 
interpretation,  and  free  comment  the  whole  substance  of 
morals  and  science  for  which  they  are  to  stand. 

Religion  is  here  presented,  not  as  submission  to  an  out- 
side will,  but  as  conformity  to  a  principle  of  life  and   Chinese 
good  which  inheres  in  the  universe,  is  found  in  the  philosophy 
consciousness,  ethically  expressed  in   the  equilib-  ° 
rium   of   human   tendencies,  and   spiritually  in   the   spon- 

1  The  Christian  conception  of  "revelation"  is  proof  against  all  refutation  of  supposed 
miracles  by  the  science  that  brings  them  within  the  natural  order.  Thus  a  scholar  like  Lenor- 
mant,  commenting  on  the  prevalence  of  divination  by  trees  in  all  Shemitic  countries,  and  ad- 
mitting that  the  "  burning  bush  "  of  Moses  "  falls  under  the  same  order  of  ideas,"  proceeds 
to  add  that  this  does  not  in  his  view  throw  any  doubt  on  the  "  miraculous  nature  of  the  fact." 
(La  Divination  chez  les  Cfialdeens,  p.  87.)  So  summarily  does  religious  monarchism  dispose 
of  unwelcome  results  from  scientific  induction  ! 


926 


BELIEFS. 


taneous  movement  of  this  true  balance  in  man  into  every 
form  of  virtue  and  every  emotion  that  pursues  the  good  of 
others  as  its  highest  end. 

T'ai-ki,  Tao,  Tien,  Shang-te,  Li,  or  however  this  Supreme 
be  expressed,  —  is  always  known  as  principle,  law,  reason, 
immanent  in  the  cosmos,  speaking  through  the  symbolic 
meaning  of  its  forms  and  changes,  and  interpreted  by  the 
reason  and  the  heart. 

The  most  devout  work  of  Chinese  religious  sentiment, 
the  Tao-te-king,  is  at  the  same  time  a  rational  philosophy, 
set  forth  in  aphorisms,  not  in  prayers  or  praises  ;  its  incon- 
ceivable Tao  is  in  fact  a  positive  Way  of  Life,  whose  rule 
is  read  in  the  spiritual  experience  of  man  and  the  contrasted 
elements  with  which  his  thought  has  to  deal. 

As  in  modern  religious  science,  faith  and  reason  are 
-  slowly  coming  to  be  referred  to  the  same  faculties 
working  together  inseparably  in  all  thought,  so  for 
ophyand  Chinese  instinct  they  are  naturally  united  in  a  simi- 
lar way  ;  faith  can  be  only  the  confidence  of  man 
shadows  jn  these  faculties  and  processes,  and  reason  his 

their  syn-  , 

rationale  of   their  testimony.     In   neither  the   in- 


stinctive  nor  the  scientific  definition  can  they  be 
science.  separated  by  giving  them  essentially  different  ob- 
jects and  spheres,  nor  by  making  the  one  a  supplement, 
supernatural  or  otherwise,  for  the  defects  of  the  other. 

Such  a  separation  of  reason  and  faith,  as  special  organs 
Discussion  respectively  of  philosophy  and  religion,  has  been  a 
of  the  good  fruitful  source  of  demoralization  in  the  Occidental 
of  th'eiong  mind.  Its  result  is  seen  in  the  currency  of  such 
separation  malformations  of  phrase  as  "  irreligious  philosophy" 
two  and  "  unphilosophical  religion  ;  "  and  in  an  expansion 

spheres.  o£  tne  demanc}s  on  either  side  for  entire  independ- 
ence of  the  other,  into  a  full  antagonism,  in  which  religion 
contemns  pure  philosophy  as  atheism,  and  philosophy  de- 
fines religion  as  mere  supernaturalism  ;  each  side  accepting 


METAPHYSICS.  927 

the  narrow  definition  of  its  opponent  as  the  true  one,  and 
waging  war  on  that  basis.  Humanity  becomes  a  heap  of 
mutilated  members  ;  aspirations  divided  against  them- 
selves ;  a  strife  of  fragments  assuming  to  be  wholes,  rife 
of  exclusiveness,  intolerance,  and  despotism. 

From  these  results  the  Chinese  instinct  of  unity  escapes, 
as  the  present  review  of  its  history  demonstrates. 

The  separation  of  faith 'and  reason  was,  it  is  true,  in  the 
interest  of  freedom,  as  necessitated  by  the  tyranny  of  su- 
pernaturalism  in  the  name  of  religion.  But  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  their  broken  unity  upon  a  higher  plane  and  in  a 
further  interest  of  freedom  has  proved  equally  necessary. 
That  the  understanding  has  gained  as  a  special  faculty 
through  that  temporary  separation  of  reason  and  faith  in 
the  freer  minds  of  the  past  is  obvious.  Moral  energy  has 
also  been  nurtured  by  the  sense  of  outwardness  and  Morality 
personal  absolutism  in  the  object  of  religious  wor-  notde- 
ship.  But  both  these  effects  are  provisional  and  omhis 
transient.  That  morality  does  not  depend  on  such  seParation- 
separation  of  reason  and  faith  is  clearly  proved  by  the 
'fact  that  no  race  in  the  world  has  attained,  by  the  habitual 
use  of  it,  so  pure  an  ethical  consciousness  as  the  Chinese 
have  reached  without  it ;  and  none,  it  is  probable,  on  the 
whole,  a  practical  conduct  more  free  from  the  grosser  vices. 
Their  defect  of  growth  is  partially  due  to  the  fact  that  they 
have  never  reaped  the  development  which  comes  from  the 
process  of  negation,  as  the  constant  condition  of  new  and 
higher  self-affirmations  ;  a  mental  failing  not  so  harmful 
to  morality  as  the  permanent  subjection  of  reason  to  faith. 

II.  In  Chinese  philosophy  we  have  nothing  to  do  with 
matter  as  a  crude,  dead  substance  wholly  distinct   n-  No 

r  ,~>  •  absolute 

from  mind.     Such  an  antithesis  is  contrary  to  mod-  separation 

ern  science  also,  as  involving  helpless  discontinui-  of  mind 

fr°m 
ties   in   the   elements   of   being.     In    all    Chinese  matter. 


928  BELIEFS. 

thought  of  permanent  mark,  the  world  given  in  the 
senses  is  the  product  of  mind  ;  but  not  as  subsequent  in 
time.  Thi's  precedence  of  mind  means  an  essential  pri- 
macy. The  universe  is  the  unity  of  essence  with  mani- 
festation. The  terms  "  Original  Force  "  and  "  Original 
Matter"  are  used  by  Ghu-hi  with  remarkable  insight,  to 
express  a  mutual  interfusion  and  interdependence  of  these 
two,  which  makes  either  principle  inconceivable  without 
the  other.  "  The  relation  of  force  to  matter  is  essential, 
Related  as  and  the  terms  before  and  after  are  so  far  inap- 
i-  plicable  to  it  ;  though  to  the  principle  of  force 
is  to  be  given  the  precedence.  All  exists  through 
the  Primal  Force,  whose  union  with  form  and  quantity 
is  only  possible  through  the  Primal  Matter,  while  of  itself 
without  this  it  could  neither  strive,  nor  work,  nor  pur- 
pose." 1  "  The  Primal  Force  is  the  Master,  hence  called 
'  the  Incomparable  '  (das  einzige).  It  is  fundamental,  hold- 
ing difference  within  itself."  2 

Here  is   direct  contrast  with  creation   in    the  Hebrew 
Contrasts    sense,  and  with  emanation  in  the  Greek.     Both  of 
these   involve   positive   separation   of   mind   from 
matter  as  from  a  dead,  outside,  and  alien  element; 


k  and  koth  consequently  issue  in  contempt  of  the 
ideas.  senses  as  purely  external  to  the  spirit  (Neoplaton- 
ism  and  Christianity),  either  making  the  world  a  place  of 
probationary  exile  for  man's  nobler  part,  or  crippling  his 
faculties  with  the  sense  of  being  bound  to  a  domain  of 
death,  a  vale  of  tears. 

For  "creation  out  of   nothing"    the  Chinese   have   no 

NO  CHI-      term  ;  nor  for  a  Beginning  of  the  world  in  time. 

fiH'c"™    For  they  do  not  conceive  of  separation  from  the 

tionputof  Primal  Source,  which   is  simply  the  essential  in- 

most Fact.     And  this  view  has  its  ground  in  the 

1  Chu-Ms  Philosophy  of  Nature  (translated  by  Neumann),  3,  31. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  8.     So  in  Chu-hi's  Commentary  to  the  T'ai-At'-fu. 


v, 


METAPHYSICS.  > 

inherence  of  effect  in  cause,  which  implies  that  the  ftfyflal 
cause  must  have  existed  foj  ever  as  effect  also.  rhih.soph' 
Creation  on  the  other  hand  involves  a  definite  be-  i"ldiffi- 

'  culties  of 

ginning  of  effect,  and  of  course  existence  previous  to  that  con- 
such  beginning  ;  in  other  words  a  stay  of  proceed-  ceptlon- 
ing,  preventing  the  manifestation  of  essential  being  itself. 
This  ante-causal  existence,  which  should  properly  be  extra 
causal  and  devoid  of  finite  expression,  is  nevertheless  in 
the  creation-mythology  clothed  by  imagination  with  the 
forms  of  personality,  purpose,  and  special  supervision,  and 
otherwise  put  under  purely  temporal  conditions  ;  and  be- 
comes the  object  of  religious  contemplation  for  the  ideal 
thought  and  feeling  of  Aryans  and  Shemites.  But  the 
effort  to  actualize  essence  without  manifestation  is  thus  on 
its  face  a  failure  ;  and  these  philosophies  of  religion,  based 
on  separation  of  God  as  spirit  from  world  as  matter,  are 
therefore  being  superseded  by  a  closer  bond  of  thought 
with  universal  laws.  The  cosmos,  visible  and  in- 


visible,  is  now  conceived  as  a  whole,  and  as  the  tificcon- 
Whole  ;  and  the  Infinite,  instead  of  being  exclu-  universal 
sive  of  this  whole,  is  the  order  and  rationality  of  Substance- 
a  universe  in  which  the  greatest  and  the  least,  space  and 
atom,  movement  of  thought  and  starting  of  seed,  are  alike 
as  law,  necessary,  and  alike  unfathomable.  There  is  but 
one  world,  and  that  not  dead  atomism,  but  in  substance 
a  living  unity,  including  man  and  all  that  man  conceives. 
While  we  find  ground  within  it  for  positive  distinction  of 
person  and  thing,  it  gives  none  for  a  gulf  between  spirit 
and  matter,  nor  for  any  adequate  definition  of  either  which 
excludes  the  other. 

We  have  already  said  that  this  identity  is   not,  for  the 
Chinese,  so  absolute  as  to  exclude  precedence   in  Employ. 
the  order  of  ideas.     And  the  necessity  is  so  strong  ment  by 
for   such  distinction,  that  they  too   are  forced   to  phiioso- 
assume  the  phraseology  of  imagination  as  to  tern-  phers  o£ 

59 


930 


BELIEFS. 


poral  successions,  even  where  such  conditions  of  time  are 
the  terms  recognized  as  inapplicable.  Thus,  while  no  great 
"before"  autnority  in  Chinese  thought  has  failed  to  regard 
"after."  Force  as  foundation  and  root  of  matter,  never- 
theless Chu-hi  himself,  while  distinctly  repeating  that 
"earlier  and  later"  can  have  no  more  application  to  this 
relation  —  which  is  essential,  not  temporal x  —  than  to  the 
"  distinction  of  day  from  daylight,"  2  at  the  same  time  uses 
the  terms  "  before  and  after  "  in  expressing  the  relation  in 
question  :  — 

"  Before  Primal  Matter  had  gathered  mass,  Primal  Force  had  noth- 
ing on  which  its  manifestation  could  be  based."  8  "  Before  Heaven 
and  Earth  were,  the  Primal  Force  alone  was."  4  "  It  was  veiled,  like 
water  in  the  sea ;  as  all  beings  are  as  water  in  the  sea,  yet  the  sea  (as 
such)  is  lord  (substance)  of  the  whole,  while  we  are  derivatives."5 

So  Lao-tse  says :  "  There  was  a  Being,  inconceivably 
perfect,  before  heaven  and  earth  arose ;  dwelling  alone, 
unchangeable."6  And  so  strong  is, the  demand  for  at  least 
verbal  personification  of  the  principle  from  which  the 
world  proceeds,  that,  from  Shang-te  in  the  Shu-king  to 
Tai-ki  in  the  latest  philosophy,  the  manifestation  of  divine 
essence  is  expressed  in  terms  that  seem  to  include  both 
under  conditions  of  succession  in  time. 

But  Chu-hi  insists  that  he  means  nothing  of  this  kind. 
Expiana-  He  incessantly  repeats  that  neither  Force  nor 
Matter  -can  really  exist  without  the  other,  nor  even 
be  conceived  as  so  existing.  Lao-tse  in  the  same  way 
identifies  the  Being  thus  pictured  as  precedent  to  the  world 
in  time,  with  his  "  Unconditional  Non-being  or  Void." 
without  trace  of  form  ;  the  base  and  limit  of  all  times  be- 
fore and  after,  as  the  eternal  substance  of  all  existence,  —  a 
sense  of  the  word  "  void,"  in  which  it  is  admitted  by  Chu- 
hi  also.7  The  older  worship  of  Shang-te,  instinctive  rather 

1  Chu-hi,  3.  2  Ibid.,  3.  3  Ibid.,  2.  *  Ibid.,  3. 

5  Ibid.,  2.  «  Tao-te-kinS,  XXV.  »  Philos.  Nat.,  3. 


METAPHYSICS.  93 1 

than  philosophical,  still  treats  the  world  and  all  its  phe- 
nomena as  immediate  manifestation  of  an  Immanent  Life. 
And  in  all  later  references  to  the  Primal  Force  as  existing 
alone,  previous  to  evolution  of  heaven  and  earth,  the  allu- 
sion is  to  the  actual  order  of  things  merely,  which  is  ad- 
mitted to  have  had  a  beginning,  but  itself  succeeded  earlier 
phases  of  matter  ;  or  it  is  a  concession  to  the  weakness  of 
all  human  speech  in  discoursing  of  the  Infinite  ;  or  finally  it 
is  a  sign  of  such  absorption  in  the  idea  of  essential  being 
as  raises  even  the  familiar  forms  and  conditions  of  think- 
ing into  attractive  expressions  of  that  idea.  But  philoso- 
phy reminds  itself,  for  Chu-hi,  that  these  are  imperfect 
devices,  and  that  the  way  of  the  Eternal  can  have  no  be- 
ginning and  no  first  point  of  entrance  into  the  tracks  of 
time. 

I  proceed  to  illustrate  this  position  from  the  history  of 
Chinese  thought.     Shang-te,  as  God,  is  inseparable  Unity  o{ 
from   Tien   (Heaven),  and  is  nowhere  said  in  the  essence 
old  Classics  to  have  "  created  "  the  world.     It  must  J^ST 
have  surprised  the  Chinese  to  read  in  the  Protes-  »nShang- 
tant  translation  of  the  Bible  that  "  the  Shang-te 
created  the  Tien,"  —  the  Tien  being  no  other  than  Shang-te 
himself. 

The  T'ai-ki,  wherever  found  in  the  Hi-tse,  the  school  of 
Confucius,  or  the  modern  school  of  Tcheou-tse  and   in  the 
Chu-hi,  is  the  whole  universe,  considered  in  its  ulti-  T'a'-ki- 
mate  principle,  reason,  law.1     "  In  the  Y-king  its  energy  is 
expressed  by  words  that  mean  to  produce,  not  to  create.'1  2 
The  T'ai-ki' -t'u,  after  educing  the  Yang  and  Yin  from  this 
First  Principle,  says  that  their  unity  constitutes  it.3     "  In 
the  world,"  says  Chu-hi,  "there  is  nothing  extra-natural; 

1  T'ai-ki  is  the  Great  Extreme  or  Highest  Point,  where  speculation    must  turn  back  upon 
itself;  literally,  the  Ridgepole  to  which  one  cHmbs  on  one  side  only  to  go  down  again  on  the 
other.    See  Von  Gabelentz,  Introd.  to  the  T'ai-ki'-fu,  p.  7. 

2  Visdelou,  in  Pauthier's  Livres  Sacr.  de  FOrient.^  p.  139. 
»  Sect.  4- 


932 


BELIEFS. 


Nature  is  omnipresent,  and  hereby  manifestly  perfect." 
"  Every  thing  has  its  own  nature  ;  the  unity  of  the  whole  is 
the  T'ai-ki."  l  "  All  beings  are  after  one  law.  If  heaven 
should  stand  still,  earth  would  fall,  and  all  things  perish  ; 
only  through  its  working  do  they  exist."  "  The  T'ai-ki  so 
exists  as  to  be  within  the  principles  of  motion  and  rest, 
and  not  so  that  it  can  be  separated."  "  The  powers  of  the 
primal  force  can  be  seen  only  by  means  of  the  primal 
matter."  "  It  is  not  out  of  things,  but  in  them."  "  Every 
thing  has  life  because  the  T'ai-ki  is  in  it."  The  one  Eter- 
nal Force  is  all :  hence  its  name,  the  T'ai-ki,  or  ultimate 
principle."  2  Chu-hi  labors  through  wearisome  repetitions 
to  express  this  his  root-idea  that  all  things  are  potentially 
within  the  T'ai-ki  (or  Tao),  as  their  essence,  and  all  in- 
separable from  it. 

It  is  the  same  with  Tao,  which  means  the  "  Way  of 
I,, the  the  T'ai-ki"  as  rationality,  its  operation  ;  and  hence 
Tao-  is  identical  with  it.  Chu-hi  distinctly  affirms  this.3 
Lao-tse  prefers  to  emphasize  the  positive  entity  of  Tao  as 
behind  all  manifestation  (in  idea),  even  of  the  primal  Force, 
but  does  not  separate  it  from  its  products :  all  is  Tao.4  As 
reason,  "  it  goes  through  all  unwearied,  the  mother  of  the 
world ;  one  with  the  dust ;  inconceivable,  yet  in  it  are 
forms,  beings,  truth ;  by  it  we  know."  5  The  moral  and 
spiritual  sides  of  Lao-tse's  doctrine  produce  a  double  use  of 
the  word,  which  stands  sometimes  for  the  substance  of  all 
being  (the  Nameless),  and  sometimes  for  the  true  right 
way  which  men  by  virtue  walk  in  and  possess,  and  by 
vice  lose  and  come  to  nought.0  By  this  twofold  meaning 
the  Tao  covers  the  whole  ground  ascribed  to  it  in  the 
Y-king  writers,  who  speak  of  it  as  the  heavenly,  earthly, 

T'ai-k?-?«,  Comment,  to  Sect-  5. 

Chu-hi's  Phil,  of  Nat.  ;  also  Wuttke's  synopsis  of  Chu-hi  Gesch.  d.  Held.,  II.  ai. 

Phil,  of  Nat.,  15  (b).  *   Tao-te-king,  chs.  xlii.,  xxi. 

Tao-te-king,  chs.  xxiv.,  xxi. 

Ibid.,  chs.  xxiv.,  xxvii.,  Ixxvii ,  liii.,  Ixv.,  xxx.,  lv.,  xxiii. 


METAPHYSICS.  933 

and  human  way,  including  all  three  (san-tsai)  in  the  one 
Right  Principle,  or  Law  of  Being. 

The  Chung-yung  also  describes  Tao  as  at  once  the  all- 
pervading  law  of  the  world,  and  the  right  path  of  in  the 
man.1     Its  ideal  virtue  (fhing)  is  at  once  the   Tao  c 
of  Heaven  and  of  man.2 

The  Confucian  school  employ  the  term  only  in  the  moral 
aspect,  as  the  way  of  right  ;  but  it  represents  the  in  other 
identity  of  the  inmost  order  of  the  universe  with  wntines- 
that  of  human  nature,  physical,  moral,  spiritual. 

The  Shu-king  says  :  "  Act  not  against  Tao,  to  get  the 
praise  of  men."  3  If  our  purposes  are  always  set  on  Tao, 
our  words  will  always  proceed  from  it."  4  The  Hi-tse  says, 
"  The  truth  and  law  of  the  Tao  of  heaven  and  earth  are 
enduring  ;  so  also  the  light  of  the  wise,  completing  the 
revolution  of  the  world."  6  These  ancient  maxims  are  but 
resumed  in  the  philosopheme  of  Chu-hi ;  "  The  holy  man 
is  the  complete  embodiment  of  the  T'ai-ki."  6 

The  common  meaning  of  all  these  illustrations  is  the  in- 
separableness  of  essence  from  manifestation.  This  in  the  use 
principle  is  inherent  in  Chinese  philosophy,  which  °f0!r^to 
consequently  holds  "  spirit  "  and  "  matter"  under  a  designate 
single  conception.  The  word  Tao-le  is  in  current 
use  to  express  this  idea  ;  le  being  the  principle 
(tao)  inherent  in  material  bodies,  considered  as  their  root 
or  origin  ;  the  principle  of  organization  ;  the  soul  of  the  uni- 
verse,—  all  of  which  constitute  but  one  Le  ;  and  this  is  to 
the  le  of  individuals  as  the  water  of  the  ocean,  out  of  which 
each  takes  a  part."  7 

Thus   we  find    that    the  apparent   dualism   of   Chinese 
thought  covers  a  deeper  unity  in   the  conception   Different 
of  being.     So  thoroughly  is  this  unity  recognized,  ^e™siveex~of 
that  the  numerous  terms  by  which  the  student  is  this  unity. 

1  Chung-yung,  XII.,  XXVI.  2  Ibid.,  XX.  18. 

3  Shu-king,  II.  B.  H.  6.  «  Ibid.,  V.  B.  v.  7.  5  Mohl,  II.  134. 

c  Comment,  to  'fai-kf-fu,  Sect.  8.  7  Morison's  Dictionary,  9945-9947;  6942. 


934 


BELIEFS. 


at  first  confused,  as  by  a  heap  of  fragments,  are  reducible 
to  different  aspects  of  one  and  the  same  principle.  A  sug- 
gestive summary  of  these  meanings  is  given  by  Meadows 
to  the  following  effect : l  — 

T'ai-ki  is  used  when  the  ultimate  principle  is  regarded 
with  reference  to  the  origin  of  the  Universe.  Tao  pre- 
sents it  as  the  right  way,  and  Le  as  the  orderly  laws  of 
the  world.  As  overruling  force  and  retributive  law  it 
is  Tien ;  as  flowing  forth  in  decree  or  will,  Tien-Ming ;  as 
influx  into  humanity,  Jin-sing.  Tien  and  Te  personify  this 
course  of  Nature.  Te  is  the  sin,  or  mind  of  Tien.  Man's 
sin  (heart)  is  his  sing,  or  nature,  as  thence  evolved.  Tih 
(virtue)  is  the  ultimate  principle  regarded  as  the  inherent 
virtue  of  that  which  it  produces.  Ching  is  the  spontaneous 
embodiment  of  this  in  the  holy  man.  "  Thus  all  these 
terms  really  mean  one  and  the  same  thing,  —  the  ultimate 
principle,  conceived  as  in  operation  at  various  stages  in 
the  evolution  of  the  universe." 

Within  this  complete  unity  of  substance, — the  law  of 
_.  .  .  which  we  should  state  to  be  that  of  manifestation, 

Distinction 

of  person  not  creation ;  of  evolution,  not  emanation;  of  in- 
''  herence,  not  influence  ab  extra,  —  there  is,  as  the 
numerous  terms  just  given  show,  enough  of  ideal  analysis 
to  represent  all  the  varieties  of  aspect  in  which  the  universe 
presents  itself  to  the  philosopher.  Chu-hi,  for  instance, 
fully  distinguishes  person  from  thing,  as  "  that  which  is 
capable  of  self-movement  and  self-stay.'1'2'  Nevertheless 
this  distinction  does  not  involve  any  essential  separation  of 
matter  as  thing  from  spirit  as  person  ;  since  (material) 
things  are  but  the  manifestation  of  (spiritual)  force  ;  and 
Yang  as  representative  of  active  spiritual  force,  and  Yin  of 
passive,  are  interwoven  in  every  thing  and  cannot  exist 

1  In  his  work,  The  Chinese  and  their  Rebellions  (p.  35?;,  a  treatise  of  rare  clearness, 
breadth,  and  learning.  The  same  keynote  to  Chinese  thought  has  been  recognized  by  Wuttke, 
Gtscfi.  d.  Heidenth.,  and  by  Lafitte,  La  Civil.  Chinoise  (1861). 

a  Neumann,  p.  32. 


METAPHYSICS.  935 

apart.1     Cosmical  energy  is  not  separable  from  that  out- 
ward material  which  it  actuates  and  which  thus  shares  the 
life  of  principles,  laws,  uses.     This  philosophy  of  Chinese 
evolution,   as   stated    in    compact    aphorisms    by  JevoiT-hy 
Tcheou-tsze,  begins  with  positing  within  the  T'ai-ki  tion. 
or  ultimate  substance  the  antithesis  of  movement  and  rest ; 
the  dynamics  and  statics,  we  might  call  them,  of  manifes- 
tation ;  the  alternation  on  which  all   beings  and  processes 
depend :  — 

"  The  Highest  Principle  of  the  world  contains  movement  (Yang) 
and  rest  (Yin).  Of  these  each  is  the  ground  of  the  other,  and  prepares 
the  other  ;  and  their  distinction  as  principles  stands  fast."  "Yin  and 
Yang  combining  produce  the  five  elements,  to  which  correspond  the 
five  atmospheric  conditions,  whence  proceed  the  seasons  of  the  year." 
"  The  five  elements  united  are  Yin  and  Yang  ;  these  in  their  unity  are 
the  primal  principle  ;  and  this  principle  has  no  (ulterior)  principle.  To 
each  thing  belongs  its  own  nature.'1  "  The  truth  of  the  T'ai-ki  and  the 
energy  of  the  Two  and  the  Five  wondrously  combine.  The  male 
principle  is  K'ian ;  the  female,  K'^un.  By  these  comes  production  ; 
for  all  natures  arise  through  generation,  whence  succession  and  change 
are  endless."  "  The  complete  fulness  of  the  T'ai-ki  is  man  ;  spirit, 
knowledge,  is  produced,  and  form  ;  the  five  great  virtues  are  in  play ; 
and,  good  and  evil  being  distinguished,  the  various  forms  of  character 
appear.  "  2 

Chu-hi  explains3  that  "  mo-remetit  is  the  all-pervading 
energy  of  truth  (as  spirit)  ;  and  rest  is  the  fitness  of  things 
by  which  truth  is  ever  renewed.  Rest  is  the  permanent 
element  in  Nature  ;  movement  the  working  force  of  destiny 
(as  law)  ;  the  result  of  both  is  the  reality  of  Nature."  "  In 
man  the  form  is  from  Yin,  the  spirit  from  Yang  ;  the  five 
great  virtues  come  in  his  contact  with  things.  Yang,  as 
active  energy,  is  the  good  as  Yin  is  the  evil  principle  ;  yet 
rest  also  is  good,  as  being  fulfilled  in  movement ;  and  the 
work-resting  of  the  two  constitutes  right  order."  "  The 

1  "  Yin  divides  into  Yin  and  Yang,  and  Yang  into  Yang  and  Yin,"  Ibid.,  33  (a).     See  also 
Hi-tse,  Mohl,  II.  395. 

2  Tarki'-tit,  Sects.  2-6.  »  Appendix  to  Tai-ki'-fu. 


936  BELIEFS. 

heart's  perfection  is  in  rest  to  find  work,  in  movement  to 
find  self-restraint  :  still,  yet  stirring  ;  stirring,  yet  still" 

Three  points  in  this  theory  of  evolution  are  worthy  of 
its  main  special  notice  :  i.  There  is  no  distinction  of  dead 
p°ints-  matter  and  living  spirit  ;  if  Yin  is  matter,  neverthe- 
less it  is  so  in  no  sense  which  deprives  it  of  inherent 
energy,  since  every  thing  material  is  a  combination  of 
Yang  with  Yin.  2.  The  substance  is  inseparable  from  the 
manifestation,  and  contains  it  ;  and  while  the  higher  is  gen- 
erated from  what  is  inferior  to  itself,  yet  every  such  step 
involves  a  higher  than  either  term,  —  :  the-all-embracing,  un- 
fathomable Substance  itself,  from  which  all  things  are 
evolved.  3.  The  mystery  of  the  process  is  none  the  less 
recognized  for  the  apparent  positivism  which  states  the 
bare  phenomena  without  even  attempting  a  solution. 
"  All,"  says  Chu-hi,  "  is  of  dne  essence  ;  nor  is  there  aught 
without  the  mystery  of  that  which  has  no  other  ground 
than  itself,  and  which  is  yet  present  in  every  thing."  1 
"  Behold  it  from  before  (the  finite  side)  we  comprehend  not 
its  oneness  ;  from  behind  (the  infinite  unseen)  we  compre- 
hend not  its  finite  dispersion."  2 

The  immediate  relation  of  force  to  matter  in  Chinese 
philosophy  is  not  atheistic,  unless  theism  be  taken 

The  form      f  '      J  / 

in  which     in  the  narrow  sense  which   conceives   God   after 


Isf6  intern-  ^n*te  analysis.  For  the  supreme  principle  is  always 
genceis  conceived  as  one  and  universal,  all-directing,  even 
conceived.  an_wjse  ancj  good!  Its  inscparablcness  from  its 
manifestations  is  not  atheism  unless  we  should  hold  that  it 
was  denying  gravitation  to  deny  that  it  exists  apart  from 
gravitating  orbs.  The  passage  from  infinite  to  finite,  from 
essence  to  embodiment,  by  no  formulas  of  man  ever  ex- 
plained, is  here  assumed,  as  in  all  philosophical  thought, 
and  without  attempt  at  formula;  but  instead  of  opening  a 
gulf  to  be  hierarchically  filled,  or  a  remote  inscrutable  will 

1  Comment,  to  Ibid.,  2.  2  Ibid..  4. 


METAPHYSICS.  937 

to  be  approached  with  fear  or  hope,  or  altered  by  human 
desire,  the  process  of  self-manifestation  is  assumed  to  be 
without  separation  of  phenomena  from  the  Substance  of 
the  world.  THey  are  still  a  part  of  the  inscrutable  mystery 
of  the  Divine  order  itself.  And  within  this  order  move  the 
real  attributes  of  mind.  The  "Will  of  Shang-te,"  the 
"  Mother-hood  of  Tao,"  the  "  Heart  of  the  T'ai-ki,"  are  ex- 
pressions which  indicate  this  recognition  of  intelligence  ; 
and  the  form  most  readily  ascribed  to  the  intimacy  of  man 
and  nature  with  their  original  Source  is  that  ideal  relation 
most  cherished  by  the  Chinese,  the  parental.  The  intelli- 
gence ascribed  to  the  First  Principle  must  appear  in  the 
world,  its  embodiment.  "  How,"  says  Chu-hi,  "  can  it  be 
said  that  Heaven  and  Earth  have  not  a  heart  (or  living 
energy)  ?  How  should  not  that,  by  which  their  everlasting 
order  revolves  in  its  changes,  think  ?  "  1  Yet  not  of  course 
after  the  analogy  of  human  processes  of  self-con-  Not  after 
scions  thought.2  In  this  latter  sense,  "  Heaven  and 
Earth  are  not  spirit ;  yet  they  have  what  the  human 
spirit  has  not,  the  power  to  produce."  3  In  the  same  sense 
again,  it  is  said  that  Yin  and  Yang  do  not  think  nor  desire.4 
But  not  in  that  sense  which  would  exclude  some  inscru- 
table form  of  intelligence  ;  as  is  evident  from  the  constant 
use  of  such  terms  as  the  "  virtue,"  "  rationality,"  "  love,"  of 
Heaven  (Tien),  and  the  purposes  embodied  in  the  order  of 
Nature  (Yin  and  Yang).  They  certainly  do  not  imply  the 
personal  self-consciousness  of  a  being  who  works  on  mate- 
rials or  to  results  which  he  regards  as  external  to  himself. 
But  the  conception  is  of  spiritual  principles  and  laws,  as  with- 
out those  limitations  which  inhere  in  minds  and  wills  that 
are  conscious  of  themselves  because  conscious  of  others  like 
to  themselves,  yet  distinct  and  independent.  Such  a  con- 
ception is  perfectly  reconcilable  with  what  we  know  of  the 

1  Neumann's  Chu-hi,  23.  2  Ibid.,  22. 

3  Ibid.  *  Tsing-li-ta-tseuen.     See  Wuttke,  II.  28. 


938  BELIEFS. 

nature  of  intelligence ;  and,  in  one  or  another  form,  seems 
to  be  the  ultimate  point  which  philosophy  reaches  in  its 
exploration  of  life. 

I  would  emphasise  this  fact.  The  Yin  and  Yang  are 
The  world  PriJlc^P^sr  not  visible  objects,  though  inseparable 
rests  on  from  all  phenomena.  The  "primal  force"  of  Chu- 
as'uui-163  hi  is  a  principle,  by  whose  eternal  unity  with 
mate.  « primal  matter,"  the  principle  of  manifestation, 
production  is  rational  and  universal.  It  is  immaterial ; 
not  even  form,  but  that  which  necessarily  manifests  itself 
in  form,  and  only  knowable,  by  man  as  that  which  does  so. 
Of  the  three  constituents  of  every  phenomenon, —  the  tan- 
gible external  thing  (chi/t),  the  primary  matter  (khi\  and 
the  primary  force  (li\  —  the  first  is  impossible  without  the 
second,  and  the  second  is  grounded  in  the  third.  These 
elements  are  not  only  common  to  all  Chinese  philosophy, 
but  form  the  current  notion  of  the  nature  of  things.  "  The 
Li,"  says  Medhurst,  "  is  almost  uniformly  believed  to  be  an 
independent  principle,  regulating  and  remunerating  the 
good  and  evil  actions  of  men."  He  found  the  Chinese 
ever  ready  to  grant  that  "  the  material  heavens  cannot 
rule,  nor  senseless  numbers  originate,  the  animal  and 
rational  creation  ;  "  and  fond  of  ending  discussion  with  the 
exclamation,  "  Every  thing  is  to  be  resolved  into  this 
principle  of  order."1  Behind  all  is  the  T'ai-ki,  or  Tao, 
ground  of  spiritual  and  material  alike.  "This,"  says 
Chu-hi,  "  is  the  primary  force  (li).  Yang  and  Yin  are 
the  primary  matter  (khi)."  The  negation  involved  in  the 
Tao  of  Lao-tse  and  the  T'ai-ki  of  Tcheou-tse  is  on  the  one 
side  absence  of  limitation,  and  on  the  other  absence  of 
prior  cause  :  in  other  words,  self-adequacy  and  self-origina- 
tion. The  Tao  is  "Void"  (non-being),  yet  "that  from 
which  all  being  springs."  In  the  same  way  the  T'ai-ki  is 
"  the  Highest  Principle,  or  Ground,  without  ground"  2  In 

1  Medhurst's  China,  p.  190.  2  T'ai-M-fu,  Sect.  i. 


METAPHYSICS.  939 

other  words,,  it  is  its  own  ground,  and  requires  nothing 
beyond  itself.  The  Tao  and  the  T'ai-ki  are  forms  of 
affirming  an  ultimate  truth  or  reality,  —  an  Ab-  The  Abso_ 
solute.  It  is  not  intended  to  base  the  world  on 
emptiness  and  nonentity.  „  Nor,  when  Chu-hi  says 
in  criticism  of  Buddhism,  that  "the  foundation  of  ofinteiu- 
things  cannot  be  vacancy,  even  if  there  be  such  a 
thing  as  a  void  at  all,"  1  does  he  mean  to  fall  back  on  any 
doubt  of  the  transcendent  reality  of  his  T'ai-ki  as  beyond 
all  special  forms  of  being,  but  rather  to  insist  on  its  realis- 
tic aspect ;  its  being  always  manifest  in  concrete  existence. 
Even  Lao-tse  does  not  deny  this.  "The  Tao  produces 
all  beings  ;  by  its  power  sustains,  by  its  life  forms,  by  its 
energy  perfects  them  :  whence  all  beings  wait  on  it  with 
adoration." 2  The  difference  is  that  Lao-tse  inclines  to 
dwell  more  than  Chu-hi  on  the  purely  abstract  side  ab- 
sorbed in  its  mystery,  which  he  really  probes  a  step  further 
than  the  latter;  saying  that  "  the  Tao  is  source  of  the  One 
itself  (T'ai-ki),  which  produces  the  Two  (force  and  mat- 
ter)." So  at  least  Chu-hi  understands  him  ;3 — a  specula- 
tive transcendence  that  seems  to  open  something  like 
Neoplatonism  or  the  Vedanta,  where  it  was  least  to  be 
expected. 

This  ultimate  reality  contains  the  substance  of  those 
relations  by  which  intelligence  is  known  to  us.  Thus,  as 
li  and  khi,  it  "  holds  at  once  the  cause  and  the  instru- 
ment, the  governing  and  the  governed,  the  reason  and  the 
rational  object."4  .  The  relations  of  these  are  nothing  else 
than  intelligence  in  its  universal  form.  Then  we  have 
the  Immaterial  as  basis  of  evolution.  "  The  purest  part  of 
the  primal  matter,"  says  Chu-hi,  "  is  spirit."  5  "  The  world 
is  the  spontaneous  activity  of  heavenly  reason."6  The 

1  Neumann,  14.  2  Tao-te-king,  ch.  li.  3    Neumann,  7. 

4  Premare's  definition.     See  Carre's  UAncien  Orient.,  I.  464. 

6  Neumann,  41  (a).  «  Chu-hi,  Append,  to  T'ai-ki'-fu. 


940 


BELIEFS. 


root  of  being  is  traced  to  laws  inherent  in  mind,  and 
recognizable  only  by  mental  experience. 

What  then  shall  we  say  to  such  conclusions  as  that  of 
wrongly  Premare,  that  the  T'ai-ki  is  "  nothing  but  matter 
interpreted  pro(jucinor  all  things  \  since  it  is  without  views, 

as  materi-      r 

aiism.  designs,  thoughts,  can  do  nothing,  and  acts  neces- 
sarily and  without  liberty  ?  "  l  We  reply,  first,  that  matter 
in  this  sense  is  wholly  unknown  to  the  Chinese  mind. 
Next,  that  "  views,  designs,  thoughts,"  are  not  things  com- 
patible with  intelligence  as  a  universal  cause  ;  and  if  they 
are  necessary  to  spiritual  activity,  then  spirit  cannot  be 
infinite.  As  to  the  "  inability  of  the  Li  to  do  any  thing,"  in 
reality  it  is  believed  to  produce  every  thing.  To  say  that 
"  it  has  not  liberty  "  because  it  moves  by  inevitable  law  in 
its  own  spontaneous  nature,  is  self-contradictory ;  since 
this  is  the  very  definition  of  the  highest  liberty.  The 
Hi-tse  says,  "  The  words  of  the  sage  should  be  like  the 
movement  of  Heaven,  by  a  law  that  cannot  be  broken." 

Davis  gives  the  still  stranger  reason  for  calling  Chu-hi  a 
"materialist,"2  that  he  "makes  no  distinction  between  the 
creature  and  the  Creator : "  a  phrase  which  might  define 
pantheism,  but  certainly  does  not  describe  materialism  ; 
and  moreover  has  no  bearing  upon  Chu-hi,  who  does  not 
recognize  such  a  relation  as  that  of  Creator  at  all.  He 
does  however  fully  affirm  a  distinction  between  Force  and 
Matter,  considered  as  guiding  principle  and  that  which  is 
guided  or  moved,  though  within  one  and  the  same  uni- 
versal life. 

It  is  curious  to  note  how  many  Christian  writers  on  Chi- 
nese philosophy  have  failed  to  see  that  the  inherence  of 
essence  in  manifestation  in  no  sense  implies  materialism  ; 
or  only  implies  it  in  that  high  sense  which  dignifies  the 
concrete  world  as  the  real  activity  of  all  ideas,  truths,  and 
powers.  We  have  seen  that  in  all  the  principal  works  of 
Chinese  speculation  and  practical  education  the  immate- 

1  Carre,  I.  466.  2  China,  II.  22. 


METAPHYSICS.  941 

rial  is  made  precedent  to  the  material.  The  same  termin- 
ology runs  through  this  whole  development  of  ages.  And 
everywhere  rationality  in  some  form  is  pronounced  the 
origin  of  these  two  principles,  by  whose  combined  action 
the  world  exists. 

"  Tao,"  says  the  Hi-tse,  "  is  a  way,  corresponding  to 
rhan's  action  from  a  fixed  law  (heart)."  "Things 
cannot  exist,"  says  Chu-hi,  "  except  through  the 
Primal  Ruler.';  The  Li-ki  calls  this  sovereign  Principle, 
principle  the  Ultimate  of  Humanity ;  the  Shu-king  calls 
it  the  Unity  according  to  Reason.  Confucius  speaks  often 
of  Tien  in  terms  that  can  hardly  be  dissociated  from  ra- 
tionality. The  Y-king  speaks  of  the  "  virtue  of  Heaven 
and  Earth  ; "  and  its  whole  system  goes  to  show  the  set  of 
the  world-order  towards  the  moral  and  intellectual  perfec- 
tion of  man. 

If  by  "  materialism"  we  understand  what  I  conceive  to  be 
its  real  meaning,  namely,  that  mind  is  the  product   Human 
of  the  lowest  forms  of  existence,  then  Chinese  phi-  mind  the 
losophy,  as  shown  by  its  leading  schools,  is  in  no  Of  the 
sense  materialistic.    It  makes  man  and  all  his  pow-  Whole> 

not  of  the 

ers   proceed   from    the  Cosmos,1  as    the   union  of  lowest 
active  and  passive  principles,  themselves  rational, 
and  proceeding  within  the  Inscrutable  Substance  and  the 
Universal  Reason.     In  other  words,  mind  is  product  of  the 
Whole ;   not  of  the  lowest,  but  of  what  is  at  once  the  high- 
est and  the  most  universal.    This  is  a  clear  presentiment  of 
the  essential  harmony  of  evolution  and  religion. 

It  is  in  the  bearing  of  its  "  principles  "  on  aspiration  to 
ideal  virtue,  that  the  spiritualism  of  this  ancient  Ethical 
cosmic  conception  is  most  apparent.     To  rise  from  s:snifi- 
observation  of  its  transient  phenomena  to  the  idea  CUMM 
of  cyclic  unities  of  law,  and  to  reduce  these  to  a  Phi!os°- 

nhy, 

single  substance  like  the  T'ai-ki,  or  the  Tao,  is  to 

"  Man  takes  his  law  from  the  Earth  ;  the  earth  from  Heaven  ;    Heaven  takes  its  laws 
from  Tao;  and  Tao  from  itself"  (Tao-te-king). 


Q42  BELIEFS. 

go  behind  external  forms  to  their  invisible  essence.  Noth- 
ing is  more  characteristic  of  the  Chinese  people  than  this 
interpretative  habit  ;  this  positing  of  the  unseen  behind 
the  seen ;  the  meaning  beyond  the  symbol.  But  to  have 
given  these  laws  intimate  relation  to  the  conscience  and 
its  demand  for  perfect  obedience,  to  have  identified  the 
operations  of  Nature  with  the  interests  of  public  and  pri- 
vate virtue,  is  a  further  step  still  ;  and  whatever  be  its  sci- 
entific imperfections,  it  is  certainly  very  far  from  absorbing 
mind  into  a  product  of  matter.  Here  are  human  condi- 
tions imposed  upon  Nature,  and  these  the  higliest  human  ; 
not  of  the  animal  and  perishable  part,  but  of  the  universal 
and  ideal.  For  a  space  of  three  thousand  years,  those  old 
symbolic  koua  have  been  made  the  mathematics  of  virtue, 
manners,  culture,  government,  religion.  Kang-hi's  "  Sub- 
lime Instructions"  pronounce  the  Y-king  superior  to  all 
other  Classics  ;  the  norm  of  character,  the  safeguard  of  the 
world.  And  Confucius  wanted  to  spend  a  mature  lifetime 
in  studying  it,  that  he  might  become  wise.  All  this  of 
course  means  more  than  a  mere  fetichism  of  straight  and 
broken  lines. 

"Yin  and  Yang,"  says  Chu-hi,  "are  the  form  of  evil  and 
The  world  good  (through  the  law  of  right  proportion  and 
interpreted  order)  ;  and  out  of  the  same  arises  the  nature  of 
moral  nat-  man.  If  they  stand  in  right  relation,  all  is  good  ; 
ureof  man.  jf  wrong>  an  [s  evj]  "  i  This  js  to  interpret  the  vis- 
ible world  by  the  moral  experience  of  man.  "  Man  is  the 
bloom  of  the  five  elements,  and  contains  their  highest 
meaning."  2  Hence  that  mutuality  of  the  moral  and  the 
physical,  which  is  the  key  to  Chinese  thought  and  prac- 
tice ;  explaining  at  once  the  popular  superstitions  and  the 
mechanism  of  the  State.  The  oldest  bit  of  Chinese  philos- 
ophy, "  The  Great  Plan,"  revealed  to  Emperor  Yu,3  lays  out 
these  ethico-physical  relations  in  the  most  systematic  man- 

1  Neumann,  36.  *  ibid.,  29;  Comm.  to  T'ai-ki'-t'u,  6.  3  Shu-king,  IV.,  iv. 


METAPHYSICS.  943 

ner ;  teaching  how  to  verify  right  conduct  in  affairs  by 
cosmic  phenomena,  which  reveal  by  their  normal  or  abnor- 
mal condition  the  sympathy  of  Nature  with  the  moral 
status  of  man.  Divination,  the  seed-ground  of  Chinese 
religion,  was  another  crude  and  primitive  expression  of  the 
same  idea.  And  this  sympathy  takes  a  higher  form,  ally- 
ing it  even  to  spiritual  graces,  in  the  spontaneity  Sponta. 
which  is  ascribed  to  the  First  Principle,  and  to  all  neity  of 
others  proceeding  from  it,  as  contained  potentially 
within  it.  Each  of  these  retains  in  its  special  activities 
this  element  of  free  accord  with  its  own  nature  and  law. 
And  the  human  life  of  principles  has  the  same  ideal  lib- 
erty. The  Chinese  distinguish  the  highest  form  of  man, 
the  saint  (Ching-jin),  by  this,  that  he^perceives  and  follows 
the  right  path  spontaneously,  preserving  his  unity  with 
the  universal  order,  while  others  reach  wisdom  and  right- 
eousness by  labor. 

This  is  the  Mencian  "goodness  of  human  nature."    Lao- 
tse's  whole  teaching  is  to  the  effect  that  Tao,  it-  Thg 
self  free,  rules  men  through  their  own  nature  ;  not  goodness 
claiming  command  over  them,  but  working  through  J^^*11 
natural   channels,   so    that    they  become   as    little   and  the 
children  :  like  the  female  bird    in  the   nest ;    like  ^fof" 
water  that  runs  to  its  own  level  ;  simple  and  sin-  spiritual 
gle  ;   not  divided  against  themselves  ;    and  hence 
free  to  become  the  "bed  of  the  world  stream  ;"  for  ever 
one   with    the    highest    life.     We    recall,    also,   Lao-tse's 
warnings  against  trying  to  manufacture  virtue  by  outward 
regulation  ;  against  putting  out  the  natural  fire  of  aspira- 
tion by  mechanical  appliances ;   against  treating  the  State 
as  something  to  be  worked  up  by  incessant  intermeddling, 
instead  of  growing  from  within  ;  a  spiritual  vessel  that  can 
be  marred,  but  not  manufactured. 


944  BELIEFS. 

Chinese  philosophy  is  then,  so  far  as  it  can  be  character- 
ized as  a  whole,  intuitional.     This  ever  unbroken 

Chinese  . 

philosophy  unity,  this  perception  of  a  common  law  for  man  and 
intuitional,  j^ature,  involves  direct  vision  ;  the  eye  of  the  ra- 
tional universe  is  in  the  reason  of  man  ;  subject  and  object 
alike  are  in  his  consciousness.  The  national  inclination  is 
to  think  not  in  slow  induction  from  observed  facts,  nor  in 
logical  sequence,  but  in  aphoristic  affirmations,  discontin- 
uous and  yet  final.  That  this  authoritative  habit  should  be 
combined  with  an  evolutional  philosophy  of  Nature  will  not 
appear  singular,  if  we  remember  that  the  evolutionist,  — 
though  he  may  be  unconscious  of  the  fact,  —  is,  as  already 
noted,  transcendental,  both  in  the  ascent  of  his  thought  be- 
Transcen-  yond  experience  to  the  universality  of  law,  and  in 
dental  eie-  tne  immediate  contact  of  mincl  with  things,  required 
evoin-  by  the  unity  of  the  evolutionary  process  itself.  The 
tionism.  Chinese  exhibit  this  combination  in  many  ways  : 
in  their  instinctive  demand  for  natural  law  and  ready  per- 
ception of  it  ;  in  their  abiding  sense  of  cosmical  wholeness, 
harmony,  and  order  ;  in  their  identification  of  idea  with 
thing,  abstract  with  concrete,  inward  with  outward  ;  and 
in  their  conviction  that  numerical  relations  are  at  the  heart 
of  the  world.  The  substance  of  all  these  tendencies,  that 
the  mind  has  one  secret  and 'one  law  with  the  universe,  in- 
volves belief  that  we  see  directly  the  truth  of  things.  Mead- 
ows, who,  I  had  almost  said,  alone  among  English  writers 
on  this  race  has  recognized  an  intuitive  method  in  their 
thinking,  even  suggests  its  analogy  with  such  expressions 
of  this  method  as  Morell's  History  of  Philosophy  and  the 
monadology  of  Leibnitz.1 

His  opinion  that  the  Chinese  are  "  pure  idealists,"  in 
optnitr35  contrast  witn  "  English  materialism,"  however  op- 
thatthe  posed  to  common  belief,  is  thus  not  without  veri- 

1  Chinese  and  their  Rebellions,  pp.  370,  371. 


METAPHYSICS.  945 

fication  from  the  point  of  view  presented  in  this  volume. 
We   have   seen    that   they  not   only  impose  upon  Chinese 
Nature   and    mind    conceptions    concerning   laws,  fj^^f 
numbers,  harmonies,  oppositions,  cyclic  movements,  sustained, 
which  are  ideal  and  require  testing,  but  treat  them  as  the 
indubitable  and  even  primal  facts  of  the  world.     More  pro- 
gressive elements  of  this  concrete  habit  of  thought  are  its 
naturalism,  its  intuitive  directness,  and  its  synthetic  use  of 
the  great  elements  of  universal  law.     Not  less  noticeable  is 
its  influence  in  causing  the  Chinese  to  slip  those  Theysiip 

questions    which    have   occupied    the    speculative  thediscus- 

•   •  sion  °* 

faculty  of  other  races  ;  such  as  origin,  analysis  of  speculative 

the  consciousness,  and  the  logic  of  ontology.  Re-  <iuestions- 
cognizing  the  mystery  of  being  and  existence,  they  do  not 
develop  this  impression  ;  all  mysteries  being  settled  by 
that  immediate  identification  of  idea  with  embodiment 
which  is  only  desirable  in  its  most  general  and  primary 
form  ;  namely,  the  necessary  unity  of  essence  with  mani- 
festation. This  transference  of  such  themes  from  the 
sphere  of  discussion  and  suspense  into  that  of  finished 
operation  and  ultimate  fact,  gives  to  Chinese  philosophy 
the  appearance  of  a  serene  assumption  of  solutions 

...  ..  ,  .  Apparent 

where  nothing  is  really  solved.     It  is  curious  that  explanation 
modern  evolutionism  produces  a  similar  impression  bymere 
in   its   explanation  of   the  origin  of  faculties  and  common  to 
forces,  by  what  are  really  mere  variations  in  the  de-  Ch!n*sre 

J  J  and  West- 

fining  phraseology  ;  mere  restatements  of  the  facts   emevoiu- 

and  processes,  which  still  await  a  deeper  ground.  *' 
In  this  aspect,  its  own  chosen  phrase  is  a  happy  description 
of  these  explanations.  They  are  "  redistributions  "  of  the 
materials  ;  but  give  no  hint  of  added  truth.  While  we  re- 
cognize the  effort  at  large  definitions,  we  cannot  escape  the 
sense  that  we  are  dealing  with  identical  propositions  an- 
nounced as  discoveries  or  arguments  ;  that  we  are  rehears- 
ing dictionaries  and  commonplace-books. 

60 


946  BELIEFS. 

For  these  similar  effects  in  Chinese  philosophy  and 
Deficiency  Western  evolutionism  there  is  a  common  cause, 
of  both  in  it  is  the  absence  or  defect  of  contemplative  habits 
tempiTtive  of  thought  ;  of  processes  which  deal  with  transcen- 
tendency.  dental  problems  as  real,  and  with  the  mystery  of 
being  and  origin  as  a  positively  formative  element  of  the 
scientific  sense,  not  a  mere  silent  factor,  or  an  empty  hypo- 
thesis. In  the  metaphysics  of  the  one  and  the  science  of 
the  other  there  is  the  tendency  to  substitute  process  for 
substance,  succession  for  cause,  constituent  elements  for 
grounds  of  existence  ;  but  with  this  difference,  —  that  while 
the  school  of  evolutionists  now  referred  to  are  apt  to  scorn 
such  conceptions  as  substance  and  cause  as  unscientific, 
and  treat  all  metaphysical  studies  as  vain,  and  all  mystery 
as  superstition,  the  Chinese  schools  accepting  these  con- 
ceptions simply  ignore  their  development,  closing  them  up 
in  fixed  formulas  and  affirmations  of  finality.  But  there 
are  notable  exceptions  to  these  defects,  both  in  the  evolu- 
tionism of  the  East  and  of  the  West. 

Related  to  these  mental  habits  of  the  Chinese  is  their 
Chinese  defect  of  individual  self-consciousness.  No  type 
defect  of  Of  mankind  is  so  uniform  as  the  Mongolic,  of  which 

individual 

they  are  members.  But  besides  this,  it  belongs  to 
Oriental  races  generally  to  conceive  life  as  a  com- 
mon atmosphere  rather  than  as  a  germ  of  individuality. 
The  movement  of  races  from  the  old  centres  of  a  more  or 
less  homogeneous  growth,  their  friction  and  adventure,  and 
the  self-asserting  energy  of  the  Aryan  and  Shemite  in  their 
respective  spheres  of  thought,  were  all  required  for  the 
culture  of  individualism.  In  the  East,  the  consciousness 
of  self  was  controlled  by  a  sense  of  the  world  as  a  whole, 
which  resembled  the  physical  sense  of  touch,  in  its  inde- 
pendence of  special  centres  and  organs.  It  appears  for  the 
Hindu  temperament  in  a  vast  vague  conception  of  the  unity 
of  being,  in  which  individual  lives  are  absorbed  ;  in  the  old 


METAPHYSICS.  947 

interchangeable  Vedic  gods  ;  in  Brahma,  in  NirvAna,  in  the 
all-engulfing  Vishnu  of  the  Bhagavadgita.  For  the  AS  an  OH- 
Chinese  it  appears  in  tendencies  to  organize  uni-  enta1  trait 
formities  ;  to  suppress  distinctions  by  levels,  averages,  and 
the  mean  between  extremes  ;  to  ethics  of  restraint ;  to  regu- 
lation of  every  thing  by  a  public  standard  ;  to  mechanical 
constructions  of  manners  and  customs,  allowing  no  margin 
for  originality  or  caprice.  The  pivot  of  their  thought  is  the 
precise  reverse  of  originality ;  a  respect  for  balance,  Theirre- 
for  the  centre  of  indifference,  for  the  mutual  limi-  si'ect  for 

....  f  balance 

tation  of  opposites,  excluding  the  assertion  of  spe-  andequi- 
cial  tendencies.     They  hold  this  law  of  balance  to  librium- 
be  the  secret  of  Nature.     Their  "  rules  of  propriety  "  or- 
ganize its  equilibrium  of  powers,  and  the  deference  of  each 
to  the  common  centre.     Philosophy,  manners,  culture,  gov- 
ernment, institute  its  avoidance  of  personal  claim,  its  lati- 
tude in  the  admission  of  opposing  sides  for  the  sake  of  their 
mutual  limitation.     In  religion  it  is  a  toleration  that  softens 
and  reduces  all  differences  ;  in  ethics,  a  rule  of  fixed  propor- 
tions ;    in  philosophy,  the  balance  everywhere  of  Yinand 
Yin  and  Yang.     To  all  mysteries  these  opposites   Yans- J 
are  the  key  ;  representing  not  the  sexual  distinction  only 
(according  to  some,  the  root-idea  of  all  ancient  religions), 
but  end  and  beginning,  motion  and   rest,  life  and  death, 
cause  and  effect,  good  and   evil,  left  and  right,  man  and 
things,  knowing  and  acting,  opposite  classes  in  all  physical 
elements  and  throughout  the  cosmic  order.     This  is  the 
earliest  and  latest  password  to  the  Chinese  mind. 

The  recognition  of  universal  polarity  and  balance  was  in 
truth  a  real  intuition.     It  detected  the  actual  for-  scientific 
mative  law,  in  thought  as  in  atomic  structure,  in 
morals  as  in  electricity.    When  Lao-tse  says,  "  The 
One  makes  the  Two,  the  Two  the  Three,  and  the  Third  is 
their  uniting  force,  so  that  the  Three  are  one,"  he  recog- 
nizes the  necessity  that  unity  should  divide  as  polar  variety, 


948  BELIEFS. 

and  that  this  should  return  to  unity  through  the  inherent 
bond  of  opposites  to  their  common  centre.  The  concep- 
tion is  not  peculiarly  Chinese  ;  it  belongs  to  philosophical 
science,  and  to  the  maturity  of  physical.  But  the  Chinese 
use  of  it  is  peculiar.  The  opposition  of  Yin  and  Yang  is 
not  dualism.  These  are  not  independent  final  powers  ; 
they  are  reconciled  in  constant  mutual  understanding  and 
aid  ;  one  in  source  and  unifying  in  action  ;  producing  the 
rhythm  of  Nature  and  man.  They  are  inseparable  in  every 
being ;  their  mutual  relations  the  norm  of  structure  ;  their 
result  the  harmony  of  man  with  the  conditions  of  his  being. 
But  what  is  more  distinctively  Chinese,  is  that  they  are 
held  of  value  chiefly  as  determinants  of  the  mean  between 
( extremes  ;  that  they  are  the  necessary  organon  of  a  peo- 
ple defective  in  individuality  and  separate  self-conscious 
force. 

We  have  now,  it  is  hoped,  traced  to  its  sources  the  faith 
Sources  of  of  the  Chinese  in  mechanical  methods  of  culture  ; 
!ndi!*ju-°f  and  shown  how  natural  were  the  reactions  against 
aiity.  it  in  Buddhism  and  the  Tao  philosophy.  Ampere 
says  "  Chinese  morality  treats  duties  as  if  employed  in  laying 
storeys  instead  of  harmonizing  men."  The  common  func- 
tion of  all  men  is  thus  subordination  to  rules,  as  based  in 
the  nature  of  things.  All  relations  have  been  formulized, 
and  nothing  can  be  added  or  subtracted.  All  races  have 
recipes  for  perfection  ;  but  where  are  they  reduced  to  such 
prescriptive  forms,  or  so  correlated  with  the  order  of  the 
universe  in  numbers  and  proportions  that  the  paths  of 
conduct  may  be  learned  by  rote,  like  the  multiplication 
table  ?  Individuality  can  neither  be  provided  for,  nor  even 
recognized,  in  a  mechanism  which  makes  morals  one  with 
mathematical  proportions.  As  in  certain  theories  of  evo- 
lution the  universe  consists  of  mechanical  laws  of  matter 
and  force,  whose  processes  are  repeated  in  the  organism  of 
mind  and  soul,  so  here  the  mechanics  of  life  are  established 


METAPHYSICS.  949 

once  for  all.  The  world  is  built  up  like  a  sum  in  arithme- 
tic, and  human  life  is  but  one  of  the  factors.  The  system 
has  become  educational  and  organic,  and  the  mind  of  a 
people  has  been  shaped  in  its  image. 

Numbers  are  here  the  root  of  being,  the  key  to  develop- 
ment. Let  us  do  justice  to  the  conception.  What  sustaining 
Pythagoras  and  Plato  saw  in  the  movement  of  ^^ 
ideas,  and  Kepler  in  the  orbits  of  the  worlds  ;  what  thought, 
the  modern  chemist  sees  in  the  law  of  definite  proportions  ; 
what  the  poet,  musician,  architect  sees  in  the  graces  of  his 
art,  —  this  possessed  the  Chinese  Mongol  also  in  his  orderly 
methodical  nature,  everywhere  seeking  normal  rule,  pro- 
portion, equilibrium,  limit.  The  absence  of  the  free  poetic 
ideal  holds  the  idea  on  its  concrete  plane.  Thus  his  wis- 
dom goes  by  count.  Virtues,  elements,  powers  physical  and 
moral,  all  are  just  so  many,  no  more  nor  less.  This  is  his 
astrology  ;  the  virtues  of  numerical  categories,  of  duads, 
triads,  and  the  like.  The  powers  of  the  koua  are  the  com- 
pass he  steers  by  through  the  sea  of  mystery.  On  them 
stands  the  fabric  of  mind  and  of  matter.  By  them  the 
diviner  prophesies  and  the  philosopher  constructs.  They 
are  his  universality,  his  common  sense,  his  optimistic  faith. 
And  what  do  they  provide  for  him  ?  A  world  built  firm 
and  sure  on  balanced  proportions  ;  an  essential  goodness 
in  human  nature,  guaranteed  by  organic  reactions  to  right 
balance,  which  no  evil  culture  or  spiritual  fall  can  destroy. 
These  are  the  sustaining  elements  of  his  creed.  These 
have  absolute  meaning  for  his  conscience  ;  symbolize  eter- 
nal distinctions  of  right  and  wrong  ;  point  him  to  ethical 
and  spiritual  grounds  of  all  existence,  not  without  a  beauty 
of  holiness  in  their  best  effects.  Nor  without  due  regard 
to  such  interpretations  shall  we  do  justice  to  this  strangely 
mechanical  culture,  which  apparently  reduces  organization 
to  the  balance  of  odd  and  even,  and  private  virtue  to  a  mean 
between  extremes. 


950  BELIEFS. 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 

CHINESE  philosophy,  according  to  one  of  its  best  inter- 
The  three  preters,  rests  upon  these  three  principles :  "  Unity 
dpies13™"  underlying  variety ;  eternal  harmonious  order ; 
Chinese  man  endowed  at  birth  with  a  nature  perfectly 

philoso-  ,  ,,  , 

phy.          good.   ! 

Our  readers  will  have  already  recognized  the  truth  of 
this  summary,  so  far  as  the  first  two  points  are  concerned. 
There  remain  to  be  indicated  the  human  relations  involved 
in  them,  and  the  ethical  idea  of  which  the  third  is  the 
expression.2 

And  first  of  the  logical  bond  of  these  three  principles. 

Cosmical  unity  implies  universal  order  and  harmony  ; 
Their  log-  anc*  tne  centralization  of  its  law  in  humanity  re- 
icai  con-  quires  that  human  nature  should  remain  essentially 
unmarred.  It  is  the  habit  of  the  Chinese  mind 
to  treat  men  in  the  mass,  and  as  a  whole  ;  and  this  habit 
goes  far  to  prevent  divergencies,  whether  in  individuals  or 
generations,  from  counting  for  much  against  the  cosmical 
requirement  now  stated,  or  introducing  any  thing  that  is 
not  implied  in  it  from  the  beginning.  In  other  words, 
nothing  like  rent  or  schism  can  break  this  unity  which 
A  "fail of  centres  in  man.  The  idea  of  essential  perversion, 
hTredhlry  extrusi°n>  or  fall,  is  inadmissible.  The  spiritual 
essential  taint,  while  it  is  not  overlooked,  becomes  inci- 
iPnea7ra™0n  dental,  subject  to  cyclic  laws  of  neutralization  ;  it 
sibie.  is  reabsorbed,  with  every  fresh  birth,  into  the  vir- 
tue of  that  inviolable  order  which  rules  the  flow  and  re- 
newal of  human  life.  For  the  young  energies  that  flame 
forth  from  wombs  of  imperfection  it  is  left  behind,  and 

1  Meadows,  Chinese,  <5rV.,  p.  351. 

2  Of  course  this  admirable  writer  on  the  Chinese,  to  whom  we  owe  many  clear  statements 
and  estimates,  is  not  at  all  responsible  for  the  views  now  presented,  on  the  basis  of  this  com- 
pact definition. 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  95  1 

only  the  best  and  purest  part  of  parentage  sifts  through 
into  day.  The  preservation  of  a  normal  relation  to  the 
universe  is  then  an  essential  part  of  the  Chinese  idea  of 
man,  and  of  man's  function  therein. 

It   is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  postulate  -of  that  idea  that  the 
whole  order  of  Nature  shall  centre  in  man.     His 

•  •  Human 

faculties,  under  all  circumstances,  must  intrinsically   Nature 


represent  that  balance  on  which  the  permanence 
of  the  system  rests.  "Man,"  says  Chu-hi,  "is  the  of  the 
flower  of  the  five  elements."  "When  he  tries  to  world; 
pursue  a  course  against  the  witness  of  the  common  con- 
sciousness," says  Confucius,  "  that  course  cannot  be  the 
true  path.  When  he  does  his  utmost  to  cultivate  his 
human  nature,  he  cannot  be  far  from  the  right  way."  1  The 
ardor  of  Mencius  for  this  belief  is  familiar  to  the  reader. 
"  In  case  of  one's  being  made  to  do  what  is  not  good,  his 
nature  is  dealt  with  as  if  you  should  strike  water  and  cause 
it  to  leap  upwards."  2  He  is  at  special  pains  to  show  that 
virtue  is  from  within.3  "  Knowing  his  own  nature,  man 
knows  heaven.  To  nourish  one's  nature  is  to  serve 
Heaven."  4  "  All  things  are  already  complete  in  us."  5  But 
"benevolence  is  man's  mind,  and  righteousness  its  path." 
And  when  the  mind  is  lost,  it  can  be  recovered  by  seek- 
ing.6 "  All  men  have  what  is  venerable  in  themselves, 
though  they  do  not  know  it."  7  Lao-tse  says  :  "  The 
world  may  be  known  by  one  who  leaves  not  his  own 
door."  8  "  He  who  holds  to  what  is  of  man  and  of  woman 
in  himself  is  the  world's  channel.  Eternal  virtue  shall  not 
depart  from  him.  To  his  native  childhood  he  returns."9 
The  Shu-king  says  :  "  Heaven  and  Earth,  parents  of  all, 
have  endowed  man  more  highly  than  any."  10  The  Shi- 
king  describes  all  men  as  good  at  first,  but  few  as  proving 

1  Chung-yung,  XIII.  ;  Lunyu^  IV.  15.  2  Mencius,  VI.  PT.  i.  2. 

3  Ibid.,  VI.  PT.  i.  4.  *  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  i.  i.  *  Ibid.,  VII.  PT.  i.  4. 

«  Ibid.,  VI.  PT.  i.  ii.  *  Ibid,  VI.  PT.  L  17.  «  Tao-te-king,  XLVII. 

o  Ibid.,  XXVIII.  »<>  Ibid,  IV.  B.  L  3. 


952  BELIEFS. 

so  at  last.1     "  To  every  faculty  Heaven  attached  its  own 
law  ;  and  this  the  people  love."  2 

Human  nature  is  the  crowning  balance  of  principles  on 
and  must  which  the  universe  turns.  Were  it  possible  for 
remain  these  principles  to  become  disorganized  just  here, 

the  very  pivot  of  order  and  harmony  would  be 
lost.  The  essential  soundness  of  human  nature  is  the 
girdle  of  the  world,  the  salt  of  the  elements,  the  focal  en- 
ergy of  their  light  and  heat.  Whatever  opinion  may  pre- 
vail as  to  the  materialism  of  the  Chinese  and  their  low 
estimate  of  the  dignity  of  man,  the  primacy  of  human  na- 
ture is  certainly  the  mainspring  of  their  philosophy,  and 
proves  its  affinity  with  the  transcendental  watchword  : 
"  Reverence  your  nature,  since  the  world  is  suspended 
from  man." 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  faculties  of  man  are  the 

origin  of  the  world,  or  the  creator  of  natural  laws. 

within  the 

primal  Man  is  historically  derived  from  the  "  primal  mat- 
ter "  of  the  cosmos,3  inseparable  from  the  "  primal 
force,"  and  in  fact  contained  within  it.4  To  this  substance 
of  the  world,  humanity,  justice,  order,  and  wisdom,  as  the 
distinctive  elements  of  his  nature,  are  referred  ;  5  and  their 
natural  persistence  guarantees  the  stability  of  things,  not 
by  reason  of  their  being  the  source  of  existence,  either  in 
a  historical  or  a  mystical  sense,  but  because  they  represent 
its  purpose  and  centralize  its  highest  expression. 

Yin  and  Yang,  matter  and  force,  not  as  antagonistic,  but 
and          as  a  necessary  product  of  the  inherent  movement 
guarantee-  of  substance  to  the  highest  form  of  manifestation,  — 
namelv»  tnat  °f  harmony  in  variety  through  stead- 
fast  balance  and  proportion,  —  are  thus  perceived 


and  guaranteed  by  means  of  the  soundness  of  hu- 
man nature  and  the  trustworthiness  of  its  faculties.     Here 

1  Ibid.,  III.  in.  i.  i.  a  Ibid.,  III.  in.  vi.  i.  s  Neumann,  20. 

*  Ibid.,  i.  5  See  also  Li-ki,  c-  xlv. 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  953 

is  assuredly  a  solid  basis  for  religious  science  ;  and  this  the 
Chinese  have  laid ;  but  without  carrying  it  forward  either 
in  a  physical  or  a  contemplative  direction,  from  causes 
which  have  already  been  discussed.  Through  other  race- 
qualities  the  Occidental  world  has  reached  a  much  clearer 
and  larger  development  in  these  special  directions,  in  spite 
of  a  deficiency  of  that  affirmative  basis  in  human  nature 
which  would  have  prevented  the  bottomless  gulf  of  a 
theological  "  Fall." 

In  the  science  and  philosophy  which  are  now  rejecting 
this  gulf  as  an  exaggeration  of  physical  and  moral  itsfacui- 
evil,  the  indispensable  guarantee  of  a  right  in  the  ^"J^ 
human  faculties  to  serve  as  ultimate  authority  for  appeal. 
the  search  of  truth  is  found  in  this  very  belief  in   their 
inherent  relation  to  the  whole,  which  Chinese  philosophy 
so  positively  affirms. 

The  fact  of  moral  evil  remains  unexplained.  Do  the 
Chinese  philosophers  ignore  it  ?  By  no  means.  Moral  evil 
They  have  an  almost  morbid  tendency  to  deplore  p|^™d' 
the  degeneracy,  and  criticise  the  vices  of  their  own  tone  of  the 
times.  Even  Mencius  does  not  disguise  the  loss  Chmese- 
of  the  mind  itself,  made  so  clear  by  the  realities  of  crime. 
Optimism,  however  it  be  intimated  in  the  Y-king  and  other 
early  writings,  is  not  found  developed  till  Mencius  ;  while 
there  is  abundant  evidence  of  full  recognition  of  these  re- 
alities in  all  of  them.1  Confucius,  not  a  psychologist,  has 
little  to  say  of  the  original  state  of  man.  Seun  main- 
tained, in  opposition  to  Mencius,  the  depravity  of  human 
nature.  After  centuries  of  dispute,  Han-yu  attempted  to 

1  See  also  Shi-king,  III.  iv.  i.  i,  7.  The  passage  in  Shu-king  (Pr.  II.  D.  n.  15)  is  trans- 
lated by  Legge:  "  The  mind  of  man  is  restless,  and  prone  to  error ;  its  affection  for  the  Tao 
small."  But  Goubil  reads:  "  The  heart  is  full  of  shoals,  while  the  heart  of  Tao  is  simple  and 
thin  (transparent)."  The  meaning  however  is  really  the  same.  Many  regard  the  passage 
itself  as  an  interpolation  by  the  followers  of  Seun. 


954  BELIEFS. 

reconcile  the  two  schools,  about  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
sketch  of  ^an  era»  ky  the  intermediate  ground  that  man  is  a 
the  con-  mixture  of  good  and  evil,  the  amounts  of  which  dif- 
aThuman  f er  according  to  the  grades  of  men.  The  settlement 
nature  in  came  at  last  in  Chu-hi,  who  sustained  Mencius, 
and  placed  pyschology  on  a  basis  conformable  to 
the  national  traditions.  We  have  seen  also  the  antithesis 
of  the  pessimist  Yang  and  the  optimist  Mih,  one  of  whom 
appealed  only  to  the  instinct  of  universal  love  as  the  root 
of  coaduct,  and  the  other  recognized  only  the  emptiness  of 
life  and  desire. 

With  the  exception  of  Yang,  whose  embitterment  was 
The  differ-  not  tempered  even  by  the  conclusion  of  Ecclesi- 
noteafcct  astes>  "  Fear  God  and  keep  the  commandments," 
the  main  these  theorists  seem  to  have  differed  merely  as 
substan-  emphasizing  different  aspects  of  human  nature, 
tiai  agree-  while  not  far  apart,  it  may  be,  on  the  question  of 
the  excel-  its  essential  excellence.  Mencius  and  Chu-hi  con- 

:e  of      cern  themselves  with  its   substance,  as  inward  ne- 

human 

nature.  cessity  and  proper  law.  Seun  insists  more  on 
actual  human  character,  as  dependent  on  education  and 
discipline ;  inferring  original  proneness  to  evil  from  the 
necessity  of  effort  to  the  attainment  of  virtue,  and  from 
the  very  aspiration  of  man  to  goodness,  as  to  something 
which  he  has  not.  "  The  fact  that  men  wish  to  do  what  is 
good  "  is  therefore  "  because  their  nature  is  bad  "  ( ! )  It 
would  be  illogical  indeed  to  draw  such  a  conclusion  in  any 
absolute  sense ;  nor  can  Seun  have  intended  to  do  so, 
since  his  noble  description  of  the  possibilities  of  virtue, 
and  his  assertion  that  all  or  any  can  reach  by  endeavor  the 
moral  elevation  of  the  sage,  and  become  a  third  with  heaven 
and  earth,  imply  as  high  an  estimate  of  human  nature 
as  that  of  Mencius  himself.  No  sceptic  nor  cynic,  Seun 
holds  to  an  idea  worthy  a  Roman  stoic,  and  not  greatly 
differing  from  his.  Finally,  Han-yu  is  concerned  mainly 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  955 

with  distinctions  of  character,  and  with  the  analysis  of 
capacities  which  he  thinks  Mencius  overlooks.  It  is  ob- 
vious that  these  views  are  all  consistent  with  original  and 
persistent  soundness  in  the  nature  of  the  soul.  On  the 
other  hand,  neither  Mencius  nor  Chu-hi  is  so  optimistic  as 
to  deny  the  facts  of  moral  evil,  though  the  former  is  es- 
pecially careful  to  indicate  the  mighty  pressure  of  the  ideal 
in  man  and  its  reserved  forces,  that  counteract  all  deterio- 
ration. This  is  Mencius's  excellence  as  an  ethicist.  Con- 
fucius, Mencius,  and  Lao-tse  all  express  this  constant 
waiting  of  a  deeper,  more  genuine  nature  in  man  upon  his 
waywardness  and  vice,  by  giving  the  name  cliild-likcness, 
or  spontaneity,  to  the  highest  form  of  virtue.  The  bear- 
ing of  these  terms  on  the  original  constitution  of  human 
nature  is  unmistakable. 


"  The  great  man  is  he  who  does  not  lose  his  child-heart."     "The 
worth  of  a  thing  is  in  its  being  natural.     If  your  wise  men    inustra 
would  do  that  which  gives  them  no  trouble,  their  wisdom   tions. 
would  be  great." 

"  Yao  and  Shun  were  what  they  were  by  nature.  T'ang  and  Woo 
by  returning  to  nature."  "  Benevolence  is  man's  mind,  and  righteous- 
ness his  path."  ' 

"  Goodness  is  like  water,  which  does  not  strive,  but  descends  to 
the  place  which  men  despise."  "  Infantile  in  its  simplicity,  the  world 
cannot  put  it  to  service."  "The  world  of  its  own  accord  hastens  to 
virtue."  "  He  who  subjects  the  animal  to  the  spiritual,  becomes  one 
with  himself,  and  even  a  child.  He  is  full  of  penetration,  yet  uncon- 
scious." 2 

"  Is  virtue  remote  ?  I  wish  to  be  virtuous,  and  lo  !  virtue  is  at 
hand."  "The  highest  of  men  is  he  who  strikes  what  is  right  without 
effort.'13 


1  Menc.,    IV.    PT.   n.    12;  IV.  PT.   n.    26;    VII.   PT.  11.  33;    VI.  PT.   t.   n.     See  also 
Mencius's  description  of  the  influence  of  morning  on  the  consciousness  of  right,  worn  out  by 
the  temptations  of  the  previous  day  (VI.  PT.  i.  8). 

2  Lao-tse^  chs.  xxii.,  viii.,  xxxii.,  xxxvii.,  x. 

3  Confucius,  Lunyu,  vii.  29;    CkttMf-jntuft  xx.  18. 


956  BELIEFS. 

In  accordance  with  his  method  of  development  from  a 
Chu-hion  principle  of  unity,  Chu-hi  declares  good  and  evil 
thereia-  to  be  not  in  positive  antagonism,  but  "necessary 
good  and  to  each  other."  "Through  evil  good  is  suggested 


evil.  even  t'0  the  bad."  it  is  not  in  the  absence  of  good, 
but  in  the  undue  subordination  of  the  higher  to  the  lower, 
that  evil  itself  consists.  Virtue  is  really  neither  Yin  nor 
Yang,  but  their  right  relation,  as  equally  needed  elements. 
"  If  they  are  in  due  order,  all  is  good  ;  but  if  wrong,  all  is 
evil."  "  Through  the  koua  lines  are  the  limits  of  advance 
and  withdrawal,  of  beginning  and  end,  determined.  In 
other  words,  justice,  reason,  purity,  measure,  consist  in 
due  observance  of  limits.1 

There  is,  then,  no  absolute  evil.     The  moral  universe  is 
Evil  not      not  a  strife  of  equal  hostile  principles.    Evil  is  the 
necessity  involved  in  diversity,  the  ground  of  prog- 
ress  and  development  ;  the  disproportion  of   ele- 
ments    not    vet   brought    into    due    relation    and 
ground  of    symmetry.      To   use   Chinese    symbols,   the    Yin 
as  l°wer  is  evil,  but  only  as  not  confining  itself 


proportion  to  its  true  function  as  lower,  serving  the  higher 
with  its  tribute  to  the  general  order.  The  Yang 
as  higher  is  good,  but  only  as  recognizing  those  limits 
between  itself  and  Yin  as  lower  that  preserve  its  proper 
sovereignty.  In  other  words,  here  is  the  latest  psychology 
of  the  West  ;  which  regards  all  human  faculty  as  good, 
and  as  becoming  evil  only  when  in  undue  proportion  and 
wrong  order  of  precedence.  Such  is  also  the  doctrine  of 
Plato. 

This  test  by  rules  of  subordination  implies  an  ideal 
standard,  by  which  the  grades  of  faculty  are  to  be  deter- 
mined. And  this  standard  is  always  defined  as  "  benevo- 
lence and  justice  :  the  path  by  which  man  unfolds  his 
heaven-born  nature." 

1  Chu-hi,  cli.  36. 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  957 

The  conception  of  Satan,  a  positive  entity  of  evil,  is 
probably   unthinkable   for  the   Chinese  mind;  in-  "Satan" 
volving,  as   it  does,  an  intense   consciousness   of  ^^  ^ 
will-power  as  against  the  universe.     It  is  through   Chinese. 
much  contemplative  study  that  the  fact  of  moral  evil  has 
been  detached  from  its  relations  to  the  whole  of  human 
nature,  and  erected  into  a  distinct  entity.     In  the  simpli- 
city of  Chinese  intuition  it  is  still  involved   in  these  rela- 
tions, where  it  will  ultimately  be  found  properly  to  belong, 
after  Shemitic  and  Aryan  self-analysis  has  done  its  work. 

It  is  true  that  this  theory  of  evil  as  relative  does  not 
explain  evil,  except  by  laying  it  to  the  account  of  Nosystem 
outward  training  or  temperamental  forces.  But  can  ex- 

...  plain   evil. 

the  positive  theory  is  quite  as  inadequate,  besides 
dividing  the  spiritual  universe  in  hopeless  schism.  What 
system  was  ever  devised,  Christian  or  other,  that  does 
explain  the  terrible  facts  ?  The  best  we  can  say  is  that 
imperfection  is  inevitable,  if  aspiration  and  growth  are  to 
be  admitted.  But  this  is  only  restating  the  terms,  not 
tracing  them  to  their  ground  and  source.  And  whatever 
light  it  throws  must  be  conceded  to  the  Chinese  theory 
also,  if  instead  of  progress  in  our  sense  we  here  substitute 
"  pursuit  of  perfection  "  in  the  Chinese  sense. 

Nor  must  we  suppose  that  this  theory  reduces  virtue 
and  vice  to  forms  of  arithmetical  proportion,  and 
substitutes  ratios  for  convictions  and  sentiments, 
Why  should  it  not  be  at  least  as  possible  to  make 
just  proportions  and  subordinations  between  mo-  earnest 
tives   or  desires   matter  of  serious  conviction  and  ™*^^ 
eternal  sanctions,  as  it  is  to  derive  such  earnest-  other  solu- 
ness  from  reverence  for  a  sacred  book,  a  supposed 
revelation  ?      It    certainly   refers    conduct    to  a   universal 
principle,  and   seeks   its   operation   in  the  facts    of ,  expe- 
rience and  the  ideal  relations  of  human  nature.     Must  it 
weaken  the  sense  of   responsibility  ?     Chinese   literature 


958  BELIEFS. 

abounds  in  moral  criticism  and  protest  ;  and  its  great  men 
have  shown,  whether  as  censors,  ministers,  thinkers,  or 
leaders,  as  keen  a  perception  of  moral  distinctions,  and  as 
fearless  a  bearing  towards  vice  in  high  places,  as  corre- 
sponding classes  in  any  other  community.  No  other  ethical 
writings  place  conduct  on  ideal  grounds,  apart  from  mere 
calculation  of  consequences,  so  systematically  as  the  Chi- 
nese. Nor  is  the  law  of  duty  anywhere  stated  in  terms 
more  absolute.1 

A  certain  optimism  in  the  conception  of  human  nature 
o  timism  *s  essential  to  self-respect.  The  unchangeable 
and  uni-  relations  of  man  to  the  eternal  facts  of  the  uni- 
verse, call  them  by  what  name  we  will,  are  ven- 
erable. 

"The  norm  of  the  wise,"  says  Chu-hi,  "is  unchange- 
ableness  ;  that  of  the  foolish,  change.  When  the  primal 
matter  does  not  overcome  the  primal  force,  then  all  joys 
result.  When  the  reverse  happens,  all  miseries."  2 

Tsze-tsze  says,  in  his  introduction  to  the  Chung-yung, 
"  This  work  contains  the  law  of  the  mind,  —  the  fixed,  all- 
regulative  principle.  Unroll  this  law,  and  it  fills  the  uni- 
verse ;  gather  it  up,  it  is  hid  in  mystery  ;  explored  with 
joy,  fulfilled  to  life's  end,  it  can  never  be  spent."  This 
law  is  not  external  commandment,  but  inmost  nature. 
Its  service  must  therefore  be  liberty.  "  What  Heaven  has 
conferred  is  called  the  nature  (of  man)  :  accordance  with 
this  is  the  path.  Not  for  an  instant  may  it  be  left.  If  it 
could  be  left,  it  would  not  be  the  path."  3 

As  for  the  method  of  virtue,  it  is  "  The  Mean  "  (Chung- 
Meaning  vung)  ;  that  due  proportion  in  the  elements  of 
of  "the  conduct,  which  results  in  harmonious  play,  justi- 

Mean"  as     .    .  /• 

the  method  tying  the  nature  of  man  by  the  usefulness  of  every 
of  virtue.  p0wer  m  jts  right  order  and  place.  "  Equilibrium 

1  Menc.  VI.   PT.   i.    10;    VII.    PT.    i.   2.      Lunyu,  XIX.    i ;    XVI.  8;    XV.  31,  34,  8; 
III.  13. 

2  Neumann,  6.  5  Chung-yung,  I. 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  959 

is  the  root ;  harmony  the  path."    "  The  perfection  of  these 
constitutes  the  happy  and  stable  order  of  the  world."  l 

The  same  ethical  universality  appears  in  the  Tao  of 
Lao-tse,  as  principle  of  duty,  as  law  of  mind,  and  as  guar- 
antee of  human  liberty  ;  always  governing  men  through 
their  own  nature  and  its  spontaneous  loyalty.  The  in- 
tenser  sentiment  of  Lao-tse  substitutes  positive  virtues  for 
the  colder  statement  of  equilibrium  :  but  the  virtues  are 
the  same  with  the  Confucian  ;  and  the  end,  with  both 
schools,  is  alike  an  ideal  harmony  within  the  soul.  "  Who 
knows  his  own  nature,"  says  Mencius,  "  knows  heaven. 
What  I  dislike  is  the  injury  done  to  the  right  way  by  tak- 
ing up  one  point  and  disregarding  a  hundred  others."  2 

So,  according  to  Chu-hi,  the  idea  resides  in  full  develop- 
ment of  all  powers  in  equilibrium  under  the  T'ai-ki,  as  at 
once  '  the  law  within  human  nature,  and  the  Infinite 
Whole  to  which  it  owes  allegiance.3 

Ethical  sanction  is  not  in  reward  and  punishment.  Chi- 
nese philosophy  simply  states  the  law,  assuming  Truth  and 
that,  when  that  is  known,  it  is  enough.  It  does  th™o!L 
not  point  to  an  arbitrary  will,  which  has  imposed  a  sanction, 
legislation,  and  distributes  its  rewards  and  penalties.  The 
impersonal  truth  of  man's  moral  relations  goes  behind  in- 
dividual beings,  and  their  authority  and  motive  are  in  their 
truth  and  reality  alone.  In  universal  principles  alone  are 
strength  and  safety.  They  are  man's  path,  therefore  he 
must  not  leave  them.  The  ideal  of  motive  is  not  to  fulfil 
a  definite  commandment,  but  to  develop  the  good  that  lies 
germinant  in  every  nature  ;  to  return  to  the  primal  law  that 
Nature  means,  and  which,  as  soon  as  the  will  pursues  it, 
proves  itself  at  home  in  man  by  the  spontaneity  of  his 
obedience. 

1  Chnng-yung,  I.  2  Menc.,  VII.  PT.  I.  i,  26. 

*  Neumann,  3,  6,  36. 


960  BELIEFS. 

Yet  the  freedom  of  the  will  to  disobey  this  normal  order 
Moral  involves  a  moral  Nemesis,  on  which  all  the  classics 
Nemesis.  anc[  philosophies  lay  more  or  less  stress.  Confu- 
cius does  not  appeal  to  this,  beyond  presenting  the  beauty 
and  joy  of  virtue  and  the  shame  of  vice.  Mencius  is  more 
disposed  to  dwell  on  retributive  justice.  "What  misery 
are  they  sure  to  endure  who  report  what  is  evil  in  others  !  " 
"  Alas  for  those  who  leave  the  tranquil  dwelling  and  the 
straight  path  !  "  1 

Penalty  is  treated,  not  as  arbitrary  infliction,  but  as  nat- 
Penaity  is  ural  consequence.  "  When  we  bring  on  our  own 
raTconle-  calamities,  it  is  not  possible  to  live.  They  who 
quence.  do  violence  to  themselves,  and  throw  themselves 
away,  by  rejecting  benevolence  and  righteousness,  are  in- 
volved in  death  and  destruction."  2  Yet,  "  to  loVe  what  is 
virtue  good  is  all-sufficient.  The  path  should  be  fol- 
spontane-  lowed  without  regard  to  reward  ;  simply  obeying 
disinter-  the  law  and  waiting  what  is  appointed."  3  In  Chu-hi 
and  Lao-tse  the  same  praise  of  spontaneous  good- 
ness is  combined  with  full  emphasis  on  the  consequences 
of  evil-doing. 

The  ideal  aim  of  discipline,  then,  is  that  integrity  and 
Meaning  harmony  of  the  faculties  which  perceives  truth  and 
°f  ^  obeys  right  by  force  of  sympathy  with  a  divine 
(common-  Moral  Order.  This  is  described  in  the  Chung- 
iateTS  yung>  as  ching,  "  sincerity  ;  "  a  translation  which, 
"sincer-  as  has  already  been  stated,  is  unsatisfactory.  "It 

itv  *M 

is  self-completion  ;  one  with  heaven  and  earth  ; 
the  infinite  in  man  ;  effecting  its  ends  without  display,  or 
effort,  or  doubleness,  so  that  they  are  past  sounding."4 
Lao-tse's  description  of  the  embodied  Tao  is  almost  iden- 
tical. And  Mencius  urges  the  same  virtue  when  he  says 
the  value  of  conduct  is  in  "  not  thinking  beforehand  of 

1  Menc.,  IV.  PT.  «.  9 ;  Ibid.,  PT.  i.  10.  2  Menc.,  IV.  PT.  i.  8,  9. 

8  Ibid.,  VI.  PT.  ii.  13  ;  VII.  PT.  n.  33.  *  Chung-yung,  XXVI. 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  961 

words  that  they  should  be  sincere,  or  of  actions  that  they 
should  be  resolute  ;  but  simply  speaking  and  doing  what  is 
right."  1  So  the  later  philosophy  points  to  twelve  saints  who 
have  been  incapable  of  evil.2  "  Ching,"  says  Tcheou-tsze, 
"  is  the  name  of  the  perfectly  real  and  naturally  right ;  and 
what  makes  the  holy  man  is  nothing  else  than  his  com- 
plete realization  of  it.  He  who  has  it  comprises  in  himself 
the  spontaneousness  of  all  true  principles.  Ching  is  the 
T'ai-ki."3  The  sum  is  that  the  saint  becomes  one  with 
the  freedom  and  energy  of  universal  law. 

Here  is  the  basis  of  a  spiritual  philosophy,  as  well  as  of 
a  philosophy  of  spirit.  Evolution  of  spontaneous  universal 
principles  results  in  the  spontaneity  of  the  highest  [  '^sd 
virtue.  The  T'ai-ki,  the  Tao,  the  Li,  the  Tien,  are  through 
not  merely  found  in  the  humanities  in  which  they  humanity- 
ultimate,  but  reach  in  these  the  concrete  life  by  which 
they  themselves  properly  become  real.  For,  by  Chinese 
logic,  no  essence  has  real  being  except  through  the  matter 
in  and  by  which  it  operates.  "  Only  by  perfect  virtue  can 
the  perfect  way  (Tao)  be  made  a  fact."  4 

This  ideal  humanity,  realized  in  a  few,  is  regarded  as 
the  process  of  history,  and  as  yet  to  be  unfolded  in  An  ideal 
the  race.  Confucius,  Mencius,  Tsze-Tsze,  Lao-tse,  ^""^ 
Chu-hi,  all  describe  its  fulfilment  as  the  ground  of  of  history, 
universal  harmony  on  earth.  "  The  superior  man  con- 
ducts the  world  to  happy  tranquillity.  They  who  are  afar 
look  with  longing  for  him  ;  those  who  are  near  are  never 
weary  of  him.  Ching  perfects  all  things,  the  beginning 
and  the  end  ;  its  possessor  completes  not  only  himself,  but 
all  others."  5  "  He  brings  back  the  unchanging  standard  of 
truth  and  duty,  and  perversities  disappear."  6  "  The  good 

Menc.,  IV.  PT.  n.  26,  n. 

Sommer  in  Erman's  Russ.  Archiv.,  XIV. 

Annot.  on  ike  Tung-shoo  ;  Meadows,  366. 

Chung-yung,  XXVII. 

Chung-yung,  XXXIII.,  XXIX.,  XXV.  «  Menc.,  VII.  PT.  11.  37. 

61 


962  BELIEFS. 

man  is  the  great  helper,  forsaking  none ;  he  is  the  true 
light ;  the  channel  of  the  whole  world."  : 


This  soul  of  virtue  is  not  merely  the  natural  ruler  of  the 
identity  world  i  it  is  the  real  efficacy  of  that  Force  by  which 
of  virtue  ali  thmprs  subsist.  Thus  the  cycle  of  evolution, 

with  the  • 

Life  of  the  beginning  in  spirit  as  abstract  idea,  is  completed 
world.  jn  Spirjt  as  concrete  personality.  Ching  resumes 
all  universal. principles  in  itself,  and  is  their  product,  as 
power.  To  show  this  identity  is  the  purpose  of  the  Chung- 
yung. 

It  is  in  view  of  this  participation  in  the  Infinite  that 
the  saint  (whether  Confucius  be  intended  or  not)  is  thus 
described :  "  He  has  no  being  nor  any  thing  beyond  him- 
self on  which  he  depends.  Call  him  man  in  his  ideal,  how 
earnest !  an  abyss,  how  profound  !  Heaven,  how  vast !  All 
who  have  blood  and  breath  unfeignedly  honor  and  love  him. 
Hence  it  is  said,  '  He  is  the  equal  of  Heaven.'  Able  to 
assist  the  transforming  and  nourishing  powers  of  Heaven 
and  Earth,  he  may  form  a  third  with  these.2  '  Knowing 
his  nature,  he  knows  Heaven/ 3  '  He  whose  action  is  in 
harmony  with  Tao  becomes  one  with  Tao  :  the  virtuous  is 
one  with  virtue. '  "  4 

Thus  the  saint,  as  representative  of  human  nature,  and 
of  its  unity  with  the  highest  force,  shows  the  individual 
The  power  soul  capable  of  transcending  its  individuality  by  par- 
ticiPation  in  universal  spirit,  through  the  principles 
it  perceives  and  puts  into  life.  This  participation 
shows  that  mind  is  regarded  as  the  constant  ground  of  all 
things  ;  since  it  is  precisely  through  his  quality  as  mind 
that  man  is  conceived  as  partaking  of  the  universal  essence, 

1  Tao-te-king,  XXVII.,  XXVIII. 

2  CkuHg-yunt,  XXXII.,  XXI.,  XXVI.,  XXII.  3  Menc-,  VII.  PT.  i.  i. 

,  XXIII.,  XVI. 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  963 

which  can  therefore  be  no  other  than  spiritual.  Thus 
Chinese  philosophy,  like  the  highest  tendency  of  science, 
lifts  the  question  of  the  origin  of  mind  above  its  relation 
merely  genealogical  data,  which  run  it  back  to  ^1^^ 
plasm  and  inorganic  matter,  in  the  universality  mind- 
and  eternity  of  that  cosmical  life  of  whose  spirituality  its 
own  experience  is  the  witness.  The  saint  is  not  the  mere 
product  of  slow  development  from  lower  forms,  though 
genealogically  he  is  so.  He  is  the  seer,  by  participation 
of  that  universal  mind  of  which  his  own  knowledge  is  the 
manifestation.  When  we  find,  as  we  do  here,  the  universal 
in  the  individual  consciousness,  we  recognize  the  primacy 
of  mind. 

This   all-sovereignty  of   the  normal  man,  embodied   in 
institutions,   and   identified  with   imperial  govern-  Chinese 
ment,    has   inspired   the   philosophers    to   present  mentsof 
perfect  ideals  in  the  persons  of  the  oldest  rulers,   theideal 

man  in 

and  brought  the  people  to  their  idolatry  of  the  rulers. 
good  emperor,  and  their  utter  repudiation  of  all  authority 
in  the  bad  one.  Hence  too  the  inference  drawn  as  to  the 
character  of  rulers  from  phenomena  of  the  heavens  and 
earth,  which  are  held  to  be  dependent  thereon  ;  so  that 
from  the  days  of  the  Shu-king  to  the  present,  the  con- 
science of  the  imperial  representative  of  human  perfec- 
tion has  been  bound  to  test  and  judge  his  conduct  by  these 
phenomena,  as  signs  of  his  success  or  failure  to  justify  the 
symbol.  This  is  Chinese  "  Special  Providence ;  "  though 
results  of  human  forces  rather  than  of  interference  by 
an  unknown  sovereign  and  supernatural  will.  In  China 
they  have  said  from  the  Shu-king  times  :  "  When  rulers 
are  good,  no  hail  hurts  the  harvest."  But  this  kind  of 
prognostication  is  so  tempered  with  rationalism,  that  it 
fails  to  produce  the  destructive  moral  results  on  govern- 
ment that  might  be  expected  ;  Chinese  rulers  having, 


964  BELIEFS. 

especially  of  late  years,  maintained  their  hold,  in  spite  of 
eclipse,  famine,  and  pestilence,  as  long  as  those  of  any 
other  nation.  On  the  other  hand,  this  supposed  depend- 
ence of  physical  phenomena  on  human  conduct,  being 
made  a  matter  of  invariable  law,  becomes  as  great  an 
obstacle  to  scientific  progress  as  the  idea  of  the  Hebrew 
or  Christian,  that  in  their  most  startling  effects  they  are 
miracles  of  retribution. 

The  divinization  of  a  perfected  human  nature,  so  con- 
contrast  stantly  the  theme  of  the  philosophers,  might  well 
of  the  involve  a  correspondently  low  estimate  of  actual 

ideal  with  .          .  ,  r 

actual        men.     The  spontaneous  justice  and  benevolence  of 


men. 


the  Ching-jin  (holy  man)  was  in  fact  ascribed  only 
to  those  whose  lives  lay  outside  the  range  of  observation, 
and  was  offset  by  perpetual  complaint  of  its  absence  from 
contemporary  life.  This  would  seem  to  involve  a  weaken- 
ing of  faith  in  such  capabilities  of  human  nature  as  must 
be  conceded  to  all  men  if  to  any.  The  higher  the  estimate 
accorded  to  immortality,  for  instance,  the  less  possible  would 
it  be  to  regard  it  as  inherent  in  human  nature,  inasmuch  as 
this  unworthy  mass  of  men  and  women  would  then  partici- 
pate in  it.  It  would,  we  might  suppose,  come  to  be  held  a 
special  attainment  of  the  few.  Yet  by  one  of  those  incon- 

sistencies  between  fixed    ideas  and  admitted  ex- 

It  does  not 

affect  the  perience,  which  are  so  apt  to  be  found  maintaining 
beiidTn  themselves  in  human  belief,  and  which  probably 
men's  im-  help  to  preserve  true  balance,  the  Chinese  do  not 
seem  to  be  disturbed  in  their  worship  of  human 
nature  by  the  apparent  pessimism  in  their  estimates  of 
actual  men. 

Nor  does  the  belief  of  mankind  in  immortality  depend 
on  the  observation  of  exalted  virtues  :  and  however  exclu- 
sive the  theory  of  it  may  be  in  its  more  refined  forms, 
it  will  maintain  universal  application  unless  set  aside  by 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  ,  965 

some  philosophical  conception  as  to  the  origin  and  nature 
of  man's  spiritual  being. 

Now  in  China  the  prevailing  philosophy,  so  far  from 
being  inconsistent  with  this  belief,  in  most  respects  tends 
to  enforce  it.  To  make  this  evident  we  must  notice  a 
propensity  in  most  Christian  writers  who  have  attempted 
to  expound  the  phraseology  of  Chinese  metaphysics. 

Starting  from  their  own  idea  of  matter,  as  a  dead  but 
positive  substance  external  to  spirit,  and  from  that  Material- 
of  spirit  as  somewhat  purely  negative  to  matter  ism»fthe 

soul incon- 

and  separate  even  from  form,  they  lose  sight  of  the  sistent 
substantial  interdependence  of  essence  and  manifesta-  Wlth  Chl" 

1  nese  con- 

tion,  and  apply  the  terms  "atheism"  and  "  materi-  ceptions. 
alism  "  to  conceptions  which,  in  the  light  of  this  interdepen- 
dence, imply  exactly  the  opposite.  Unity  of  essence  and 
manifestation  being  the  central  idea  of  Chinese  philosophy, 
its  language  must  be  interpreted  in  view  of  what  this  unity 
requires.  If  the  separation  of  spirit  from  form  is  incon- 
ceivable to  the  concrete  working  of  the  Chinese  mind,  the 
same  habit  also  resolves  matter  itself  into  the  operative 
force  of  principles  which  are  identified  with  the  human 
spirit,  as  well  as  with  the  substance  of  Nature  and  cosmic 
life. 

Is  there,  then,  any  thing  in   this  conception  of   human 
nature  which  would  discredit  personal  immortality  ?  imm0r- 
The  high  possibilities  conceded  to  virtue,  and  the  talitya 
familiar    nature   of   those  qualities   which   are  re-  deduction 
garded  as  germs  of  the  ideal,  strongly  suggest  a  from  them< 
future  life,  if  only  as  an  incident  to  the  progress  of  these 
qualities  and  powers  in  their  function  of  mastering  natural 
forces,   and  converting  them  to  human  good.      But  as  a 
future  life  is  not  wont  to  be  accepted  upon  the  logic  of  ideal 
virtue,  but  rather  upon  the  meanings  attached  to  the  ideas 
of  spirit  and  individual  being,  it  is  by  inspection   of  these 
meanings  that  we  must  determine  whether  immortality  be 


966  BELIEFS. 

not,  as  Wuttke  says,  "a  cuckoo's  egg  in  the  Chinese 
system." 

Not  only  has  the  language  positive  terms  for  spirit  as 
Terms  for  suc^  (*&*'*)>  am*  ^or  spi^t  as  fixed,  or  "contracted," 
spiritual  in  definitely  known  Human  embodiments  (kwei)  ; 
but  the  Hi-tse  actually  defines  shin  as  that  which 
does  not  fall  under  the  measure  of  Yin  and  Yang.1  Chu- 
hi  says  it  is  that  through  which  matter  and  elements  exist  ; 
and  to  the  "  spirit "  of  the  Primal  Force  he  gives  the  same 
name  (sin)  which  he  applies  to  the  human  mind.  "  That 
is  spirit  which  moves  itself,  and  refrains  from  moving,  at 
its  own  will."  2 

For  spiritual  beings  the  great  moralists  have  deep  vener- 
ation. Confucius  describes  the  kwei- shin  just  as 

Veneration 

im spirit*  we  should  speak  of  free  spiritual  forces.  "We 
look  for  them,  but  we  do  not  see  them  ;  listen,  but 
we  do  not  hear  them ;  yet  they  enter  into  all  things,  and 
there  is  nothing  without  them."  "  Their  approaches  you 
cannot  surmise,  and  can  you  treat  them  with  indifference  ? "  3 
He  identifies  them  with  the  highest  virtue  (ching).  So 
Mencius  says,  "  When  the  sage  is  beyond  our  knowledge, 
we  call  him  a  '  spirit-man.'"  4  The  Shu  and  Shi  speak  of 
hosts  of  spirits,  as  moved  by  music  and  by  sincerity,  and 
as  accepting  only  the  sacrifice  of  the  good.  They  form  a 
divine  society  to  which  only  goodness  will  admit  one.  The 
kwei-shin  are  the  basis  of  national  worship,  and  in  later 
times  the  pivot  of  the  Buddhist  and  Tao-sse  religions.  The 
reticence  of  the  philosophers,  as  contrasted  with  the  posi- 
tive faith  of  the  people  and  the  religious  books,  is  very 
natural,  and  proves  the  earnestness  of  a  rationalism  which 
would  not  affect  to  dogmatize  on  matters  beyond  experi- 
ence ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  their  definition  of  spirit 
which  makes  a  'future  life  impossible. 

1  Hi-tse,  VIII.  2  Neumann,  41,  5,  32. 

8  Chung-yung,  XVI.  *  Menc.,  VII.  PT.  H.  25. 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  967 

The  statement  of  the  Li-ki,  that  "  man  originates,  for  his 
moral  part,  from  the  virtue  of  Heaven  and  Earth ;  origin  of 
for  his  physical,  from  the  combination  of  Yin  and  man> 
Yang ;  for  his  spiritual,  from  the  union  of  spirits  and  gods  ; 
and  for  his  proper  form,  from  the  subtle  essence  of  the 
five  elements,"  J  —  will  hardly  be  comprehended  without 
taking    Chu-hi's    more    scientific    expression  of  the  same 
ideas  in  the  form  of  evolution.     "Man,"  he  says,  "is  the 
flower  of  the   five   elements  ; "  "  the   house   in  which  the 

• 

Yin  and  Yang  cannot  be  separated."  Their  material  aspect 
appears  in  his  physical  elements,  their  dynamic  (or  spirit- 
ual) in  his  moral  and  mental  powers.  He.  receives  their 
purest  elements,  the  product  of  their  capacity  for  ration- 
ality. The  spiritual  appears  in  him  at  birth.  This  evolu- 
tion from  the  elemental  forces  of  the  cosmos  proceeds 
upon  the  constant  energy  of  the  primal  substance,  whose 
spirituality  makes  man  a  spirit.2 

Thus  born  of  the  elements,  polarities,  and  dynamic  uni- 
ties of  a  living  cosmos,  he  is  composed  of  a  spirit-  His  spirit_ 
ual  (Ho-cn),  and  an  animal  part  (P'e).  At  death 
the  first  ascends  to  "  heaven,"  the  last  descends  to 
dust.  Death  is  simply  this  separation  ;  but  it  is  affectedby 
not  absolute,  since  the  general  belief  is  that  sin- 
cere rites  will  cause  the  complete,  though  more  subtle, 
reunion  of  the  Ho-en  and  the  P'e  in  their  former  per- 
sonality, now  invisible.3 

Plainly  the  principles  into  which  the  Ho-en  ascends  are 
the  immaterial  one  of  Primal  Force,  and  the  Primal  Matter 
which  is  simply  its  operation.  In  every  being  a  force  of 
individuality  (li)  is  united  with  the  khit  or  general  sub- 
stance of  matter,  "  which  it  uses  as  its  instrument  or  vase."  4 

1  Gallery,  p.  45  (ch.  viii.).  *  Neumann,  2$,  i. 

3  On  these  points  see  Neumann's  Chu-hi;  Sommer's  Gr-undz.  d.  neueren  Philos.  d. 
Chines.;  Plath,  Rel.  d.  Alt.  Chin.  ;  Pauthier's  China  ;  Visdelou  ;  Medhurst's  Theol.  of  tJu 
Chinese:  Carre,  L'Anc.  Orient. ,  I.  ch.  viii. 

*  Premare  ;  Carre,  I.  464. 


968  BELIEFS. 

And  of  this  combination  the  bond  is  a  rational  "  heart  " 
(sin),  ruler  of  the  body,  and  invisible  principle  of  the  sing, 
or  substance  of  the  man. 

To  the  sin  is  ascribed  the  power  of  putting  the  Primal 
Force  in  the  man  above  the  Primal  Matter,  and  of  bringing 
the  faculties  into  proportionate  activity.  It  subordinates 
the  P'e  to  the  Hoen,  the  Khi  to  the  Li.  Through  its 
special  Li,  which  is  not  destroyed  by  the  separation  of  the 
P'e,  the  Ho-en  may  then  still  retain  positive  being  and  find 
other  embodiment,  as  upon  Chinese  principles  it  must  im- 
mediately do,  if  it  exists  at  all.  The  popular  idea  that  the 
Hoen  and  P'e  may  again  be  united,  like  the  beliefs  in 
ghosts  with  us,  is  simply  a  sign  of  the  strength  of  the  per- 
suasion of  continued  life  after  death. 

Translated  into  familiar  language,  this  Chinese  psychol- 
°gv  obviously  contains  nothing  materially  different 


as  to  cw-    from  European,  so  far  as  regards  the  elements  and 

nese  belief 

in  immor-  structure  of  individual  being.  The  contrast  lies  in 
the  evolutionary  theory  of  its  origin  and  in  the 
non-distinction  of  matter  as  dead  from  spirit  as  living  ;  and 
these  points  are  rapidly  becoming  data  of  our  modern 
science.  While  we  find  here  no  demonstration,  of  a  future 
life,  and  no  distinct  advocacy  of  the  belief  in  either  of  the 
leading  Chinese  philosophers,  we  are  still  further  from 
finding  any  thing  inconsistent  with  it,  or  even  with  its 
being  regarded  as  a  natural  and  fitting  crown  to  human 
evolution.  Should  the  capacity  of  becoming  equal  with 
heaven  and  earth,  and  one  with  their  substance  and  source, 
through  a  humanity  which  places  the  spiritual  above  the 
material  part,  lose  its  force  as  an  argument  for  immortality 
because  of  the  unwillingness  of  the  philosophers  to  describe 
inmost  laws  of  being  by  any  of  the  terms  that  signify  the 
limited  experience  of  men?  It  is  allowed  by  all  that  a 
large  proportion  of  the  Chinese  have  sympathy  with  the 
Buddhists  and  the  Tao-sse  in  their  belief  in  personal 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  969 

spirits  ;  and  that  the  belief  in  communion  with  ancestral 
ones  is  almost  universal.  Is  it,  then,  to  be  supposed  that 
the  moral  teacher  who  simply  refrains  from  pretending  to 
have  penetrated  beyond  veils  that  no  man  ever  lifted  in 
the  flesh  has  thereby  denied  the  possibility  of  a  future  life ; 
and  this,  too,  through  a  theory  which,  so  far  from  being 
materialistic,  elevates  ideal  personality  into  the  substantial 
ruler  of  the  world  ? 

We  find,  then,  no  proof  that  immortality  is  a  "  cuckoo's ' 
egg  "  in  the  Chinese  system  ;  nor  do  we  conceive  how  any 
important  constituent  in  a  nation's  belief  can  be  an  inter- 
loper in  its  philosophy. 

The  principles  of  Chinese  evolutionary  science  have  al- 
ready been  stated.  But  Chu-hi's  interpretation  of  Summary 
the  cosmical  process  deserves  attention  as  the  fit-  of  chu-hi's 
ting  close  of  this  account  of  the  philosophy  of  a  S) 
people  whose  affinities  with  the  science  of  the  West  are 
of  the  highest  interest.  We  may  note,  before  attempting 
to  describe  it,  that  as  the  unity  of  essence  and  manifesta- 
tion forbids  the  commencement  of  the  cosmos  by  creative 
act  at  any  given  time,  so  no  other  cosmogony  is  possible 
here  than  one  which  should  trace  the  development  of  the 
actual  order  of  the  universe  as  a  single  link  in  an  infinite 
series,  without  beginning  as  without  end.  The  law  of 
cycles,  operating  on  this  immeasurable  scale,  would  lift 
cosmogony  into  the  realm  of  metaphysical  construction 
outside  the  natural  sphere  of  Chinese  thinking,  but  for 
certain  a  priori  principles,  which,  with  but  little  attempt  at 
development,  it  imposes  at  once  on  the  visible  world. 

The  system  of  Chu-hi  resumes  the  whole  physical  phi- 
losophy of  China  from  beginning  to  end.     He  dis-  His  cos- 
tinctly  refers  the  beginning  of  the  present  order  of  EvoSn 
Nature  to  a  period  some  ten   thousand  years  ago,   without 

.  beginning 

and  regards  it  as  the  metamorphosis  of  an  earlier  or  end,  or 


970  BELIEFS. 

cycle,  which,  according  to  his  school,  lasted  one  hundred 
loss  of  and  twenty-nine  thousand  six  hundred  years.1 
force.  Heaven  and  earth,  having  the  form  of  the  primal 
matter,  cannot  be  annihilated,  and  only  the  distribution  of 
its  elements  can  be  changed.  These  constantly  flow  from 
the  all-productive  Primal  Force,  yet  without  separating  from 
it,  since  their  principles  of  motion  and  rest  reside  poten- 
tially within  its  depths,  and  by  their  free  manifestation  as 
distinction,  with  instantaneous  flash  (i.  e.,  movement  inher- 
ent and  necessary),  institute  the  actual  world-order.  By 
The  in  none  have  these  principles  of  productivity  been 
smitabie  analyzed  or  explained.  This  force  behind  matter 
is  wholly  inscrutable.  By  the  inherent  movement, 
ascent  and  descent,  of  the  two  principles  (as  unity  and  di- 
.  versity,  motion  and  rest)  and  the  five  elements,  all 

Production  •>'  / 

by  polarity  things   are   produced    in    mamiold    permutations. 

mutado'n,  This  is  the  Li  *  (law)  of  heaven  and  earth.  The 
from  evolution  is  progressive.  The  elements  originate 
in  nebula  or  chaos,  penetrated  by  oscillatory  or 
circular  movement  of  the  two  principles,  having  inherent 
tendency  to  revolve  before  it  moves  ;  which  produces  a 
separation  of  higher  and  lower  parts,  and  more  or  less 
pure :  whereby  heaven  and  earth  are  set  apart.  The  cir- 
cling of  the  primal  matter  "  rubs  forth  "  a  deposit,  which 
forms  the  earth,  held  in  place  only  by  the  swiftness  of  the 
revolution  of  the  whole.  Under  the  same  influences,  a 
great  moist  heat  moving  in  the  chaos  separates  it  into 
water  and  fire.  From  the  slime  of  the  former  the  solid 
earth  is  formed.  From  the  purest  parts  of  the  latter  come 
atmospheric  meteors.  The  result  of  further  elimination  of 
all  heavy  parts  of  fire  is  light. 

1  The  elements  of  this  sketch  will  be  found  in  Neumann's  translation  of  the  Philosophy 
of  Chu-hi.  For  further  reference,  see  Wuttke,  II.  pp.  13-28,  and  Chinese  Repos.,  Oct., 
1844. 

!  Basil's  Chin.  Dictionary  defines  Li  by  "  to  govern  ;  the  right  reason  of  thines  ;  the 
immaterial  first  principle  implicated  in  matter ;  inherent." 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  9/1 

Heaven  is  the  earth's  dwelling  ;  earth  is  within  it,  and 
so  penetrable  by  the  celestial  breath  that  in  respect  scientific 
to  its   movements  it  may  be  called  "  mere  void."   sugges' 

lions. 

So  rapid  the  circulating  movement  of  the  heavens, 
that  on  the  highest  mountains,  say  the  Tao-sse,  the  wind  of 
it  cannot  be  withstood.  Were  this  motion  to  cease,  the 
earth  would  fall  from  her  place.  Heaven  is  not  high  in 
itself,  nor  earth  low  ;  but  the  solid  weight  of  the  earth 
causes  it  to  be  called  low.  The  earth  is  round,  since 
wherever  we  go  we  are  still  in  the  middle  of  it.1  The 
shells  found  on  mountains  prove  that  the  earth  is  a  deposit 
from  water.  There  were  deluges  in  past  ages,  since  these 
objects  were  not  made  of  stone.  The  purer  and  finer  es- 
sence of  the  two  elements  produces  the  less  pure  ;  and  by 
further  operation  draws  out  metal  and  wood.  From  these 
come  the  infinite  variety  of  forms  and  phenomena. 

The  polar  forces  of  matter,  which  primarily  move  this 
evolution,  are  Yang  and  Yin.  They  inhere  in  elements 
and  forms,  each  possessing  its  own  through  predominance 
in  its  composition.  Thus  wood  and  fire  are  Yang  ;  metal 
and  water  are  Yin.2  But  while  dividing  the  world  between 
them  as  constructive  powers,  these  two  principles  Yin  and 
are  not  separated  from  each  other.  For  in  Chi- 


nese    philosophy   principles    are    always    mutually  thin-sin 
penetrative   and    in    essential   harmony  ;     so    that  Pr0p0r! 


much  pains  are  taken  to  show  that  really  every 
thing  contains  in  itself  a  combination  of  the  two,  and  by 
reason  thereof  goes  through  its  appointed  changes  of 
motion  and  rest,  of  beginning  and  end,  of  life  and  death. 
The  construction  of  Nature,  which  passes  here  for  physical 
science,  consists  in  calculating,  by  numerical  proportions, 
the  different  combinations  of  Yang  and  Yin  in  each  series 

1  See  Sommer  (as  above). 

2  The  relation  of  the  elements  to  heaven  and  earth  is  not  very  clearly  given  in  Neumann's 
abstract,  which  ascribes  water  to  heaven  and  fire  to  earth,  in  one  passage,  and  in  another  the 
reverse. 


972 


BELIEFS. 


of  phenomena,  —  elements,  colors,  senses,  seasons,  planets, 
signs,  cycles  ;  all  of  which  are  based  on  very  slight  data  of 
facts,  the  grounds  of  judgment  being  mainly  speculative. 
It  will  easily  be  seen,  however,  that  the  descent  of  the 
principle  of  polar  combination  into  the  whole  realm  of 
forms  approximates  to  the  modern  theory  of  atomic  struc- 
ture, which  makes  polarity  the  basis  of  all  individual  exist- 
ences. The  polarity  consists  not  merely  in  motion  and 
rest,  growth  and  decay,  expansion  and  involution,  and  the 
antithesis  of  sex,  but  in  numerical  relations  of  odd  and 
even  ;  a  kind  of  chemistry  of  definite  proportions,  contain- 
ing, like  the  rest,  strange  instinctive  presentiments,  from  a 
purely  a  priori  point  of  view,  of  scientific  laws. 

The  continued  separation  of   these  finest  elements  of 
the  cosmos,  a  purification  of  Nature,  issues  in  the 

Man  the  •    . 

biorm  of     formation  of  man  ;  "  heart  of  Nature,  perfection  of 


^ie  unbroken  lme  °f  unity,  as  things  are  from  the 
heart  of  broken  line  of  diversity."  1  The  idea  of  law  is  held 
•fast,  as  the  soul  (i)  of  activity,  form,  and  move- 
ment, producing  the  principle  of  evolution  (//)  in  things 
conceived  as  one;  and  (2)  of  their  material  being  (khi\ 
as  rest,  passivity,  and  multiplicity.  Li  and  Khi  are  thus 
the  primal  force  and  matter  in  their  universal  operation. 
Khi  itself  is  again  divisible,  as  matter  in  its  activity  (Yang), 
and  in  its  rest  (Yin)  ;  the  one  as  life  and  expansion,  the 
Correia-  otner  as  death  and  involution.  Finally  all  things 
tionsof  have  their  height  of  convergence,  in  which  they 
mutually  touch  ;  so  that  fire  changes  to  earth,  and 
earth  to  metal.  Once  more  a  hint  of  the  conclusions  of 
physical  science. 

We  here  observe  the  philosophical  relations  of  that  sin- 

gular system  of  popular  superstitions  which  domi- 

basisTf      nates  Chinese  life  under  the  name  of  Fung-shui. 

Fung-,hui.  Of   this   substitute   for  science   we   have   already 

1  Neumann,  35. 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  973 

spoken  ;  its  endless  correspondences,  and  numerical  rela- 
tions between  earth  and  heaven  ;  its  permutations  of  the 
two  principles  to  produce  the  various  features  of  Nature  ; 
its  interpretation  of  these  as  bearing  on  the  lives  and  for- 
tunes of  men  ;  its  complicated  compass  of  the  geomancers  ; 
its  mysteries  of  the  white  dragon  and  white  tiger,  of  cur- 
rents to  be  drawn  on,  or  fenced  off,  by  right  selection  and 
management  of  locations  for  dwellings,  temples,  and  tombs.1 
The  groundwork  of  the  whole  is  found  stated  in  Chu-hi, 
without  its  superstitious  details,  and  goes  far  back  of  him 
to  the  old  koua  divination. 

Eitel   calls  Fung-shui   "  a  groping  after  science,  untu- 
tored by  practical  observation,"  which  is  certainly  Ra,ionai. 


true.  But  this  system  by  no  means  embraces  the 
•whole  capacity  of  the  Chinese  for  interpreting  Na-  supersti- 
ture.  Rationalistic  opinion  has  at  all  times  found  tions> 
expression  in  criticising  this  popular  fetichism.  Thus 
a  treatise  in  the  fourteenth  century  (before  rational- 
ism had  begun  to  penetrate  into  popular  beliefs  in  the 
European  world)  exposed  the  "  vulgar  errors  "  of  the  time 
under  fifteen  heads,  —  life  and  death,  pestilence,  spirit- 
powers  ;  sacrifices,  customary  and  illicit  ;  elves  and  mon- 
sters, witchcraft,  divination,  choice  of  places  for  tombs  ; 
physiognomical  notions,  fortune-telling,  positions,  times  and 
seasons,  strange  doctrines.2  ".The  Kih-wuh-ting  (1528) 
treated  from  a  rationalistic  point  of  view  the  rules  of  per- 
sonal culture  and  public  duty."3  Wang-chung  (eighteenth 
century)  was  a  very  original  metaphysician  who  suffered 
persecution  on  account  of  the  boldness  of  his  attack  on 
superstition.  He  is  described  as  of  boundless  audacity  in 
his  criticism  of  the  Confucianists  themselves.4  Even  in 
Fung-shui  itself  we  may  observe  hints  and  presentiments 
of  the  latest  science,  not  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of  any 

1  These  are  elaborately  described  in  Dr.  Eitel's  pamphlet. 

*  Wylie  (p.  70)  gives  an  analysis  of  this  work,  the  Pten-hwo-pien.  3  Ibid. 

*  See  Mayers's  Manual. 


974  BELIEFS. 

other  ancient  nation,  if  we  except  the  poem  of  Lucretius, 
and  a  few  scattered  gleams  in  the  Hindu  and  Greek  schools. 
In  positive  observation  of  specific  facts,  however,  the  Greeks 
were  far  superior. 

The  absence  of  miraculous  intervention,  or  of  super- 
Fore-  natural  will  ;  the  non-commencement  of  the  world 
of  modem3  at  tne  beginning  of  its  present  system  ;  the  im- 
science.  measurable  cycles  of  the  past  ;  the  unity  of  law  ; 
the  interpenetration  of  forces  ;  the  immanence  of  the  primal 
Substance  ;  the  division  of  Nature  into  force  and  matter  ; 
the  primitive  nebula,  or  homogeneous  chaos  ;  the  circu- 
lar or  rotary  movement  by  which  the  distinctions  of  time, 
of  the  seasons,  of  heaven  and  earth  are  produced  ;  the 
evolution  of  all  forms  from  the  primitive  simplicity  ;  the 
polarity  of  force,  so  conceived  as  to  suggest  atomic  struc- 
ture and  definite  elementary  proportions  ;  the  endless  per- 
mutations and  redistributions  of  matter  without  loss  ;  the 
correlation  of  forces,  —  all  these,  however  indistinctly  pro- 
nounced and  undeveloped,  indicate  a  divinatory  genius  for 
science,  which  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  this  colossal  in- 
stance of  arrested  national  development,  and  deserves  a 
much  profouncler  study  than  present  data  permit. 

We   are   not   surprised  that   early  descriptions    of    the 
Causes  of    Chinese   should  have   reported  them   as   carefully 
observing  astronomical  phenomena,  and  dilated  on 
their  interest  in  European  science,  and  the  effort 
°^  tneir  statisticians  to  record  and  arrange  these 


and  the      observations  from  an  early  period  downwards.    The 

absence  of     -     -  . 

scientific  defects  which  frustrate  such  intuitions  by  debarring 
machinery,  them  from  the  minute  studies  in  which  our  age  is 
so  fertile  are  (i)  an  idealism  which  cannot  hold  itself  apart 
from  definite  embodiments,  and  so  imposes  itself  directly 
on  Nature  without  suspense,  thus  failing  of  the  correction 
which  free  study  of  things  would  have  supplied  ;  and  (2)  a 
consequent  absence  of  the  machinery  of  scientific  discov- 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  9/5 

ery.  We  must  remember  that  until  Galileo  and  Bacon,  and 
the  most  recent  apparatus  of  physical  science,  the  Euro- 
pean world  was  at  the  mercy  of  arbitrary  fancies  Promise 
and  forces  imposed  on  Nature  as  explanations,  Chinese 
and  as  fertile  in  superstitious  beliefs  in  currents,  ™™*> 
subtle  influences,  and  the  whole  pandemonium  of  occult 
powers,  as  is  the  Fung-shui  of  the  Chinese.  Witchcraft, 
sorcery,  and  magic  are  scarcely  clearing  off  from  our  skies, 
our  fields,  and  our  homes.  Let  us  not  doubt  the  power  of 
this  great  people,  with  their  clear  sense  of  law,  their  work- 
faculty  in  details,  and  their  freedom  from  many  of  those 
traditional  religious  illusions  which  hinder  the  advance  of 
science,  tb  use  with  effect  the  machinery  now  available; 
to  multiply  it  by  the  cunning  of  the  eye  and  hand  ;  and  to 
complete  the  circuit  of  the  globe  in  the  magnetic  chains  of 
physical  and  moral  amelioration  which  science  predicts, 
and  which  only  the  antipathies  of  race  and  creed  can  long 
delay. 


Cambridge :  Press  of  John  Wilson  &  Son. 


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